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SKETCHES AND ESSAYS; 



AND 



WINTERSLOW 

(ESSAYS WRITTEN THERE). 



SKETCHES AND ESSAYS; 



AND 



WINTEESLOW 

(ESSAYS WRITTEN 



BY 

WILLIAM HA 



A NEW EDITION, 

BY 

W. CAREW HAZLITT 




LONDON; 
BELL & DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 

1872. 






n 



m 



PEEFACE. 



The Papers contained in the following pages were first 
collected by the Author's son, in two volumes, in the years 
1839* and 1850f respectively. They are now reproduced 
without any alteration. I have introduced occasional 
notes, where they seemed to be necessary, and the names 
of persons, indicated only by initials in the former 
editions, have been printed in full. 

W. C. H. 

Kensington, September 1, 1872. 



* Sketches and Essays, By William Hazlitt. Now first Collected 
by his Son, 1839. A Second Edition called Men and Manners, Essays 
by William Hazlitt, appeared in 1852. 

t Winterslow ; Essays and Characters written Tliere. By William 
Hazlitt. Collected by his Son, 1850. 



ADVEETISEMENT TO THE EDITION 

OF 1839. 



The volume which the Editor has here the gratification 
of presenting to the public, consists of Essays contributed 
by their author to various periodicals. None of them 
have hitherto been published in a collective form, and it 
is confidently anticipated that they will be received as an 
acceptable Companion to Table Talk and the Plain 
Speaker. 




CONTENTS. 



1. SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 





PAGE 


Ox Beading New Books . 


1 


On Cant and Hypocrisy .... 


18 


Merry England ..... 


. 32 


On a Sun-Dial . . . 


47 


On Prejudice ..... 


. 58 


Self-Loye and Benevolence. (A Dialogue) . 


73 


On Disagreeable People .... 


. 107 


On Knowledge op the World 


123 


On Fashion . . . . • 


. 142 


On Nicknames ...... 


149 


On Taste ...... 


. 158 


Why the Heroes op Romances are Insipid . 


178 


On the Conversation op Lords 


. 190 


The Letter-Bell ..... 


209 


Envy ...... 


. 215 


On the Spirit of Partisanship 


222 


Footmen ...... 


. 236 


A Chapter on Editors .... 


244 


2. WINTERSLOW. 




My First Acquaintance with Poets 


. 255 


Of Persons one would wish to have seen . 


278 


On Party Spirit ..... 


. 294 


On the Feeling op Immortality in Youth . 


299 



viii Contents. 

PAG* 

On Public Opinion ..... 807 

On Personal Identity .... 320 

Mind and Motive . . . . . .335 

On Means and Ends ..... 350 

Matter and Manner . . . . .330 

On Consistency of Opinion .... 367 

Peoject for a New Theory of Civil and Criminal 

Legislation ..... \ 383 

On the Character of Burke. . . . 408 

On the Character of Fox .... 426 

On the Character of Mr. Pitt . . . 438 

On the Character of Lord Chatham . . . 444 

Belief, whether Voluntary ? 449 

A Farewell to Essay-writing- . . . .458 




SKETCHES AND ESSAYS 



On Beading New Boohs. 



" And what of this new book, that the whole world make such a 
rout about?" — Sterne. 

I cannot understand the rage manifested by the greater 
part of the world for reading New Books. If the public 
had read all those that have gone before, I can conceive 
how they should not wish to read the same work twice 
over ; but when I consider the countless volumes that lie 
unopened, unregarded, unread, and unthought-of, I cannot 
enter into the pathetic complaints that I hear made that 
Sir Walter writes no more — that the press is idle — that 
Lord Byron is dead. If I have not read a book before, it 
is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was 
printed yesterday or three hundred years ago. If it be 
urged that it has no modern, passing incidents, and is out 
of date and old-fashioned, then it is so much the newer ; 
it is farther removed from other works that I have lately 
read, from the familiar routine of ordinary life and makes 
so much more addition to my knowledge. But many 
people would as soon think of putting on old armour as of 
taking up a book not published within the last month, or 
year at the utmost. There is a fashion in reading as well 
as in dress, which lasts only for the season. One would 

1 See Memoirs of William Hazlitt, 1867, ii, 154.— Ed. 

B 



2 On Pleading New Books. 

imagine that books were, like women, the worse for being 
old ; l that they have a pleasure in being read for the first 
time ; that they open their leaves more cordially ; that the 
spirit of enjoyment wears out with the spirit of novelty ; 
and that, after a certain age, it is high time to put them on 
the shelf. This conceit seems to be followed up in 
practice. What is it to me that another — that hundreds 
or thousands have in all ages read a work ? Is it on this 
account the less likely to give me pleasure, because it has 
delighted so many others ? Or can I taste this pleasure by 
proxy ? Or am I in any degree the wiser for their 
knowledge ? Yet this might appear to be the inference. 
Their having read the work may be said to act upon us by 
sympathy, and the knowledge which so many other persons 
have of its contents deadens our curiosity and interest 
altogether. We set aside the subject as one on which 
others have made up their minds for us (as if we really 
could have ideas in their heads), and are quite on the alert 
for the next new work, teeming hot from the press, which 
we shall be the first to read, criticise, and pass an opinion 
on. Oh, delightful ! To cut open the leaves, to inhale 
the fragrance of the scarcely dry paper, to examine the 
type to see who is the printer (which is some clue to the 
value that is set upon the work), to launch out into regions 
of thought and invention never trod till now, and to ex- 
plore characters that never met a human eye before — this 
is a luxury worth sacrificing a dinner-party, or a few 
hours of a spare morning to. Who, indeed, when the 
work is critical and full of expectation, would venture 
to dine out, or to face a coterie of blue-stockings 
in the evening, without having gone through this or- 
deal, or at least without hastily turning over a few of the 
first pages, while dressing, to be able to say that the be- 

] " Laws are not like women, the worse for being o.d." — The Duke 
of Buckingham's Speech in the House of Lords, in Charles the 
Second s time. 



On Reading New Boohs. 3 

ginning does not promise much, or to tell the name of the 
heroine ? 

A new work is something in our power : we mount the 
bench, and sit in judgment on it ; we can damn or recom- 
mend it to others at pleasure, can decry or extol it to the 
skies, and can give an answer to those who have not yet 
read it and expect an account of it ; and thus show our 
shrewdness and the independence of our taste before the 
world have had time to form an opinion. If we cannot 
write ourselves, we become, by busying ourselves about it, 
a kind of accessories after the fact. Though not the parent 
of the bantling that " has just come into this breathing 
world, scarce half made up," without the aid of criticism 
and puffing, yet we are the gossips and foster-nurses on 
the occasion, with all the mysterious significance and self- 
importance of the tribe. If we wait, we must take our 
report from others ; if we make haste, we may dictate 
ours to them. It is not a race, then, for priority of 
information, but for precedence in tattling and dog- 
matising. The work last out is the first that people talk 
and inquire about. It is the subject on the tapis — the 
cause that is pending. It is the last candidate for success 
(other claims have been disposed of), and appeals for this 
success to us, and us alone. Our predecessors can have 
nothing to say to this question, however they may have 
anticipated us on others ; future ages, in all probability, 
will not trouble their heads about it ; we are the panel. 
How hard, then, not to avail ourselves of our immediate 
privilege to give sentence of life or death — to seem in 
ignorance of what every one else is full of — to be behind- 
hand with the polite, the knowing, and fashionable part of 
mankind — to be at a loss and dumb -founded, when all 
around us are in their glory, and figuring away, on no 
other ground than that of having read a work that we have 
not ! Books that are to be written hereafter cannot be 
criticised by us ; those that were written formerly have 



4 On Beading New Boohs. 

been criticised long ago : but a new book is the property, 
the prey of ephemeral criticism, which it darts tri- 
umphantly upon ; there is a raw thin air of ignorance and 
uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion ; 
and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity, rush eagerly into 
the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance 
and coxcombry to gather laurels in — the butt set up for 
roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then, that the 
circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and 
their grand-daughters, when a new novel is announced ? 
That Mail-Coach copies of the Edinburgh Beview are or 
were coveted ? That the Manuscript of the Waverley 
Bomances is sent abroad in time for the French, German, 
or even Italian translation to appear on the same day as 
the original work, so that the longing Continental public 
may not be kept waiting an instant longer than their 
fellow-readers in the English metropolis which would be, 
as tantilising and insupportable as a little girl being kept 
without her new frock, when her sister's is just come home 
and is the talk and admiration of every one in the house ? 
To be sure, there is something in the taste of the times ; 
a modern work is expressly adapted to modern readers. It 
appeals to our direct experience, and to well-known sub- 
jects ; it is part and parcel of the world around us, and is 
drawn from the same sources as our daily thoughts. 
There is, therefore, so far, a natural or habitual sympathy 
between us and the literature of the day, though this is a 
different consideration from the mere circumstance of no- 
velty. An author now alive has a right to calculate upon 
the living public : he cannot count upon the dead, nor 
look forward with much confidence to those that are unborn. 
Neither, however, is it true that we are eager to read all 
new books alike : we turn from them with a certain feeling 
of distaste and distrust, unless they are recommended to us 
by some peculiar feature or obvious distinction. Only 
young ladies from the boarding-school, or milliners' girls 



On Beading New Books. 5 

read all the new novels that come out. It must be spoken 
of or against ; the writer's name must be well known or a 
great secret ; it must be a, topic of discourse and a mark 
for criticism — that is, it must be likely to bring us into 
notice in some way — or we take no notice of it. There is 
a mutual and tacit understanding on tnis head. We can 
no more read all the new books that appear, than we can 
read all the old ones that have disappeared from time to 
time. A question may be started here/ 1 and pursued as far 
as needful, whether, if an old and worm-eaten Manuscript 
were discovered at the present moment, it would be sought 
after with the same avidity as a new and hot-pressed poem, 
or other popular work ? Not generally, certainly, though 
by a few with perhaps greater zeal. For it would not 
affect present interests, or amuse present fancies, or touch 
on present manners, or fall in with the public egotism in 
any way : it would be the work either of some obscure 
author — in which case it would want the principle of 
excitement ; or of some illustrious name, whose style and 
manner would be already familiar to those most versed in 
the subject, and his fame established — so that, as a matter 
of comment and controversy, it would only go to account 
on the old score : there would be no room for learned 
feuds and heart-burnings. Was there not a Manuscript of 
Cicero's talked of as having been discovered about a year 
ago ? But we have heard no more of it. There have 
been several other cases, more or less in point, in our time 
or near it. A Noble Duke (which may serve to show at 
least the interest taken in books not for being new) some 
time ago gave 2, 260Z. for a copy of the first edition of 
the Decameron: but did he read it? 1 It has been a 
fashion also of late for noble and wealthy persons to go to 

1 It was the Duke of Marlborough, the grandfather of the present 
Duke, when Marquis of Blandford, who bought this volume against 
Lord Spencer at the Eoxburghe sale, in 1812. At the White Knights 
sale, in IS 19, however, Lord Spencer had the satisfaction of securing 
the book for less than 1000Z.— Ed. 



6 On Reading New Books. 

a considerable expense in ordering reprints of the old 
Chronicles and black-letter works. Does not this rather 
prove that the books did not circulate very rapidly or 
extensively, or such extraordinary patronage and liberality 
would not have been necessary ? Mr Thomas Taylor, at 
the instance, I believe, of the old Duke of Norfolk, printed 
fifty copies in quarto of a translation of the works of Plato 
and Aristotle. He did not choose that a larger im- 
pression should be struck off, lest these authors should get 
into the hands of the vulgar. There was no danger of a 
run in that way. I tried to read some of the Dialogues 
in the translation of Plato, but, I confess, could make 
nothing of it : " the logic was so different from ours ! " 1 

1 An expression borrowed from a voluble German scholar, who 
gave this as an excuse for not translating the ' Critique of Pure 
Reason ' into English. He might as well have said seriously, that 
the Rule of Three in German was different from ours. [See Memoirs 
of William Hazlitt, i, 35.] Mr. Taylor (the Platonist, as he was called) 
was a singular instance of a person in our time believing in the 
heathen mythology. He had a very beautiful wife. An impudent 
Frenchman, who came over to London, and lodged in the same hoi?se, 
made love to her, by pretending to worship her as Yenus, and so 
thought to turn the tables on our philosopher. I once spent an 
evening with this gentleman at George Dyer's chambers, in Clifford's 
Inn, where there was no exclusion of persons or opinions. I re- 
member he showed with some triumph two of his fingers, which 
had been bent so that he had lost the use of them, in copying out 
the manuscripts of Proems and Plotinus in a fine Greek hand. 
Such are the trophies of human pride ! It would be well if our 
deep studies often produced no other crookedness and deformity ! 
I endeavoured (but in vain) to learn something from the heathen 
philosopher as to Plato's doctrine of abstract ideas being the 
foundation of particular ones, which I suspect has more truth in it 
than we moderns are willing to admit. Another friend of mine 
[Leigh Hunt] once breakfasted with Mr. Dyer (the most amiable 
and absent of hosts), when there was no butter, no knife to cut the 
loaf with, and the tea-pot was without a spout. My friend, after a 
few immaterial ceremonies, adjourned to Peele's coffee-house, close 
by, where he regaled himself on buttered toast, coffee, and the 
newspaper of the day (a newspaper possessed some interest when 



On Betiding New Books. 7 

A startling experiment was made on this sort of retro- 
spective curiosity, in the case of Ireland's celebrated 
Shakspeare forgery. The public there certainly man- 
fested no backwardness nor lukewarmness : the enthusism 
was equal to the folly. But then the spirit exhibited on 
this occasion was partly critical and polemical, and it is a 
problem whether an actual and undoubted play of Shaks- 
peare's would have excited the same ferment ; and, on the 
other hand, Shakspeare is an essential modern. People 
read and go to see his real plays, as well as his pretended 
ones. The fuss made about Ossian is another test to refer 
to. It was its being the supposed revival of an old work 
(known only by scattered fragments or lingering tradition) 
which gave it its chief interest, though there was also a 
good deal of mystery and quackery concerned along with 
the din and stir of national jealousy and pretension. Who 
reads Ossian now ? It is one of the reproaches brought 
against Buonaparte that he was fond of it when young. 
I cannot for myself see the objection. There is no doubt 
an antiquarian spirit always at work, and opposed to the 
spirit of novelty-hunting; but, though opposed, it is 
scarcely a match for it in a general and popular point of 
view. It is not long ago that I happened to be suggesting 
a new translation of Don Quixote to an enterprising book- 
seller ; and his answer was — " We want new Don 
Quixotes." I believe I deprived the same active-minded 
person of a night's rest, by telling him there was the 
beginning of another novel by Goldsmith in existence 

we were young) ; and the only interruption to his satisfaction was 
the fear that his host might suddenly enter, and be shocked at his 
imperfect hospitality. He would probably forget the circumstance 
altogether. I am afraid that this veteran of the old school has not 
received many proofs of the archaism of the prevailing taste; and 
that the corrections in his History of the University of Cambridge 
have cost him more than the public will ever repay him for. [This 
anecdote is worked up with capital effect in Hunt's Men, Women, 
and Books, 1846. It is the story of Jack Abbott's breakfast.] 



8 On Reading New Books. 

This, if it could be procured, would satisfy both tastes for 
the new and the old at once. I fear it is but a fragment, 
and that we must wait till a new Goldsmith appears. We 
may observe of late a strong craving after ' Memoirs,' and 
8 Lives of the Dead. 5 l But these, it may be remarked, 
savour so much of the real and familiar, that the persons 
described differ from us only in being dead, which is a 
reflection to our advantage : or, if remote and romantic in 
their interest and adventures, they require to be bolstered 
up in some measure by the embellishments of modern 
style and criticism. The accounts of Petrarch and Laura, 
of Abelard and Eloise, have a lusciousness and warmth in 
the subject which contrast quaintly and pointedly with the 
coldness of the grave ; and, after all, we prefer Pope's 
Eloise and Abelard, with the modern dress and flourishes, 
to the sublime and affecting simplicity of the original 
Letters. 

In some very just and agreeable reflections on the story 
of Abelard and Eloise, in a late number of a contem- 
porary publication, there is a quotation of some lines 
from Lucan, which Eloise is said to have repeated in 
broken accents as she was advancing to the altar to 
receive the veil : 

" O maxime conjux ! - 
O thalamis indigne meis ! Hoc juris habebat 
In tantum fortuna caput ? Cur impia nupsi, 
Si miserum factura fui ? Nunc accipe paenas, 
Sed quas sponte luam." 2 

This speech, quoted by another person, on such an 
occasion, might seem cold and pedantic ; but from the 
mouth of the passionate and unaffected Eloise it cannot 
bear that interpretation. What sounding lines ! What a 

1 I presume Landor's Imaginary Conversations is the work in- 
tended. There are also Letters from the dead to the living, and 
Fenelon's Dialogues of the Dead. — Ed. 

2 Pharsalia, lib. 8. 



On Reading Neiv Boohs. 9 

pomp, and yet what a familiar boldness in their applica- 
tion — " proud as when blue Iris bends!" The reading 
this account brought forcibly to mind what has struck me 
often before — the unreasonableness of the complaint we 
constantly hear of the ignorance and barbarism of former 
ages, and the folly of restricting all refinement and 
literary elegance to our own. We are, indeed, indebted 
to the ages that have gone before us, and could not well 
do without them. But in all ages there will be found 
still others that have gone before with nearly equal lustre 
and advantage, though, by distance and the intervention 
of multiplied excellence, this lustre may be dimned or 
forgotten. Had it then no existence? We might, with 
the same reason, suppose that the horizon is the last 
boundary and verge of the round earth. Still, as we 
advance, it recedes from us ; and so time from its store- 
house pours out an endless succession of the productions 
of art and genius ; and the farther we explore the 
obscurity, other trophies and other land-marks rise up. 
It is only our ignorance that fixes a limit — as the mist 
gathered round the mountain's brow makes us fancy we 
are treading the edge of the universe ! Here was Eloise 
living at a period when monkish indolence and super- 
stition were at their height — in one of those that are 
emphatically called the dark ages ; and yet, as she is led 
to the altar to make her last fatal vow, expressing her 
feelings in language quite natural to her, but from which 
the most accomplished and heroic of our modern females 
would shrink back with pretty and affected wonder and 
affright. The glowing and impetuous lines which she 
murmured, as she passed on, with spontaneous and rising 
enthusiasm, were engraven on her heart, familiar to her 
as her daily thoughts ; her mind must have been full of 
them to overflowing, and at the same time enriched with 
other stores and sources of knowledge equally elegant and 
impressive ; and we persist, notwithstanding this and a 



10 On Beading New Books. 

thousand similar circumstances, in indulging our surprise 
how people could exist, and see, and feel, in those days, 
without having access to our opportunities and acquire- 
ments, and how Shakspeare wrote long after, in a 
harbarons age ! The mystery in this case is of our own 
making. We are struck with astonishment at finding 
a fine moral sentiment or a noble image nervously 
expressed in an author of the age of Queen Elizabeth ; 
not considering that, independently of nature and feeling, 
which are the same in all periods, the writers of that day, 
who were generally men of education and learning, had 
such models before them as the one that has been just 
referred to — were thoroughly acquainted with those mas- 
ters of classic thought and language, compared with 
whom, in all that relates to the artificial graces of com- 
position, the most studied of the moderns are little better 
than Goths and Vandals. It is true, we have lost sight 
of, and neglected the former, because the latter have, in a 
great degree, superseded them, as the elevations nearest to 
us intercept those farthest off; but our not availing 
ourselves of this vantage ground is no reason why our 
forefathers should not (who had not our superfluity of 
choice), and most assuredly they did study and cherish 
the precious fragments of antiquity, collected together in 
their time, " like sunken wreck and sumless treasuries ; " l 
and while they did this, we need be at no loss to account 
for any examples of grace, of force, or dignity in their 
writings, if these must always be traced back to a pre- 
vious source. One age cannot understand how another 
could subsist without its lights, as one country thinks 
every other must be poor for want of its physical produc- 
tions. This is a narrow and superficial view of the 
subject : we should by all means rise above it. I am not 
for devoting the whole of our time to the study of the 
classics, or of any other set of writers, to the exclusion and 
1 Henry V., i, 2 [Dyce's edit. 1868, iv, 429]. 



On Beading New Boohs. 11 

neglect of nature ; but I think we should turn our thoughts 
enough that way to convince us of the existence of genius 
and learning before our time, and to cure us of an over- 
weening conceit of ourselves, and of a contemptuous opinion 
of the world at large. Every civilised age and country 
(and of these there is not one, but a hundred) has its litera- 
ture, its arts, its comforts, large and ample, though we 
may know nothing of them ; nor is it (except for our own 
sakes) important that we should. 

Books have been so multiplied in our days (like the 
Vanity Fair of knowledge), and we have made such 
progress beyond ourselves in some points, that it seems at 
first glance as if we had monopolised every possible 
advantage, and the rest of the world must be left destitute 
and in darkness. This is the cockneyism (with leave be it 
spoken) of the nineteenth century. There is a tone of 
smartness and piquancy in modern writing, to which 
former examples may, in one sense, appear flat and 
pedantic. Our allusions are more pointed and personal : 
the ancients are, in this respect, formal and prosaic 
personages. Some one, not long ago, in this vulgar, 
shallow spirit of criticism (which sees everything from its 
own point of view), said that the tragedies of Sophocles 
and 2Eschylus were about as good as the pieces brought 
out at Sadler's Wells or the Adelphi Theatre. An oration 
of Demosthenes is thought dry and meagre, because it is 
not "full of wise saws and modern instances:" one of 
Cicero's is objected to as flimsy and extravagant, for the 
same reason. There is a style in one age which does not 
fall in with the taste of the public in another, as it 
requires greater effeminacy and softness, greater severity 
or simplicity, greater force or refinement. Guido was 
more admired than Eaphael in his day, because the man- 
ners were grown softer without the strength : Sir Peter 
Lely was thought in his to have eclipsed Vandyke — an 
opinion that no one holds at present : Holbein's faces 






12 On Beading New Books. 

must be allowed to be very different from Sir Thomas 
Lawrence's — yet the one was the favourite painter of 
Henry VIIL, as the other is of George IV. What should 
we say in our time to the euphuism of the age of Elizabeth, 
when style was made a riddle and the court talked in 
conundrums ? This, as a novelty and a trial of the wits, 
might take for a while : afterwards, it could only seem 
absurd. We must always make some allowance for a 
change of style, which those who are accustomed to read 
none but works written within the last twenty years 
neither can nor will make. When a whole generation 
read, they will read none but contemporary productions. 
The taste for literature becomes superficial, as it becomes 
universal, and is spread over a larger space. When ten 
thousand boarding-school girls, who have learnt to play 
on the piano, are brought out in the same season, Eossini 
will be preferred to Mozart, as the last new composer. I 
remember a very genteel young couple in the boxes of 
Drury Lane being very much scandalised some years ago 
at the phrase in A New Way to Pay Old Debts — tc an 
insolent piece of paper" — applied to the contents of a 
letter ; it wanted the modern lightness and indifference. 
Let an old book be ever so good, it treats (generally 
speaking) of topics that are stale, in a style that has 
grown " somewhat musty;" of manners that are exploded, 
probably by the very ridicule thus cast upon them; of 
persons that no longer figure on the stage ; and of interests 
that have long since given place to others in the infinite 
fluctuations of human affairs. Longinus complains of the 
want of interest in the Odyssey, because it does not, like 
the Biad, treat of war. The very complaint we make 
against the latter is that it treats of nothing else ; or that, 
as Fuseli expresses it, everything is seen " through the 
blaze of war." Books of devotion are no longer read 
(if we read Irving's Orations, it is merely that we may go 
as a lounge to see the man) : even attacks on religion are 



On Beading New Boohs. 13 

out of date and insipid. Voltaire's jests and the Jew's 
Letters in answer (equal in wit, and more than equal in 
learning), repose quietly on the shelf together. We want 
something in England about Eent and the Poor-La ws, 
and something in France about the Charter — or Lord 
Byron. With the attempts, however, to revive super- 
stition and intolerance, a spirit of opposition has been 
excited, and Pascal's Provincial Letters have been once 
more enlisted into the service. In France you meet with 
no one who can read the New Eloise ; the Princess of 
Cleves is not even mentioned in these degenerate days. 
Is it not provoking with us to see the Beggars' Opera cut 
down to two acts, because some of the allusions are too 
broad, and others not understood ? And in America this 
sterling satire is hooted off the stage, because, fortunately, 
they have no such state of manners as it describes before 
their eyes; and because, unfortunately, they have no 
conception of anything but what they see. America is 
singularly and awkwardly situated in this respect. It is 
a new country with an old language ; and while every- 
thing about them is of a day's growth, they are constantly 
applying to us to know what to think of it, and taking 
their opinions from our books and newspapers with a 
strange mixture of servility and of the spirit of contra- 
diction. They are an independent state in politics : in 
literature they are still a colony from us — not out of their 
leading strings, and strangely puzzled how to determine 
between the Edinburgh and Quarterly Beviews. We have 
naturalised some of their writers, who had formed them- 
selves upon us. This is at once a compliment to them 
and to ourselves. Amidst the scramble and lottery for 
fame in the present day, besides puffing, which may be 
regarded as the hot-bed of reputation, another mode has 
been attempted by transplanting it ; and writers who are 
set down as drivellers at home, shoot up great authors on 
the other side of the water; pack up their all — a title- 






14 On Beading New Boohs. 

page and sufficient impudence ; and a work, of which the 
flocci-nauci-niliili-pili-fication, in Shenstone's phrase, is well 
known to every competent judge, is placarded into emi- 
nence, and "names in the forehead of the morning sky'' 
on the walls of Paris or St. Petersburgh. I dare not 
mention the instances, but so it is. Some reputations 
last only while the possessors live, from which one might 
suppose that they gave themselves a character for genius : 
others are cried up by their gossiping acquaintances, as 
long as they give dinners, and make their houses places 
of polite resort ; and, in general, in our time, a book may 
be considered to have passed the ordeal that is mentioned 
at all three months after it is printed. Immortality is 
not even a dream — a boy's conceit ; and posthumous fame 
is no more regarded by the author than by his bookseller. 
This idle, dissipated turn seems to be a set-off to, or 
the obvious reaction of, the exclusive admiration of the 
ancients, which was formerly the fashion : as if the sun of 
human intellect rose and set at Kome and Athens, and the 
mind of man had never exerted itself to any purpose since. 
The ignorant, as well as the adept, were charmed only 
with what was obsolete and far-fetched, wrapped up in 
technical terms and in a learned tongue. Those who 
spoke and wrote a language which hardly any one at 
present even understood, must of course be wiser than we. 
Time, that brings so many reputations to decay, had 
embalmed others and rendered them sacred. From an 
implicit faith and over-strained homage paid to antiquity, 
we of the modern school have taken too strong a bias to 
what is new ; and divide all wisdom and worth between 
ourselves and posterity — not a very formidable rival to 
our self-love, as we attribute all its advantages to our- 
selves, though we pretend to owe little or nothing to our 
predecessors. About the time of the French Eevolution, 
it was agreed that the world had hitherto been in its 
dotage or its infancy ; and that Mr. Godwin, Condorcet, 



On Beading New Boohs. 15 

and others were to begin a new race of men — a new epoch 
in society. Everything up to that period was to be set 
aside as puerile or barbarous ; or, if there were any traces 
of thought and manliness now and then discoverable, they 
were to be regarded with wonder as prodigies — as irregu- 
lar and fitful starts in that long sleep of reason and night 
of philosophy. In this liberal spirit Mr. Godwin composed 
an Essay to prove that, till the publication of TJie Inquiry 
concerning Political Justice, 1 no one knew how to write a 
word of common grammar, or a style that was not utterly 
uncouth, incongruous, and feeble. Addison, Swift, and 
Junius were included in this censure. The English 
language itself might be supposed to owe its stability and 
consistency, its roundness and polish, to the whirling 
motion of the French Kevolution. Those who had gone 
before us were, like our grandfathers and grandmothers, 
decrepit, superannuated people, blind and dull; poor 
creatures, like flies in winter, without pith or marrow in 
them. The past was barren of interest — had neither 
thought nor object worthy to arrest our attention ; and 
the future would be equally a senseless void, except as 
we projected ourselves and our theories into it. There 
is nothing I hate more than I do this exclusive, upstart 
spirit. 

* By Heavens, I'd rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 
So might I, standing on some pleasant lea, 
Catch glimpses that might make me less forlorn, 
Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea. 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 2 

Neither do I see the good of it even in a personal and 
interested point of view. By despising all that has pre- 
ceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves. Where 

1 An Inquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on 
General Virtue and Happiness. London, 1793, 2 vols. 4to. — Ed. 

2 Wordsworth's Sonnets. 



16 On Beading New Boohs. 

there is no established scale nor rooted faith in excellence, 
all superiority — our own as well as that of others — soon 
comes to the ground. By applying the wrong end of the 
magnifying glass to all objects indiscriminately, the most 
respectable dwindle into insignificance, and the best are 
confounded with the worst. Learning, no longer sup- 
ported by opinion, or genius by fame, is cast into the 
mire, and " trampled under the hoofs of a swinish multi- 
tude." I would rather endure the most blind and bigoted 
respect for great and illustrious names, than that pitiful, 
grovelling humour which has no pride in intellectual 
excellence, and no pleasure but in decrying those who 
have given proofs of it, and reducing them to its own 
level. If, with the diffusion of knowledge, we do not 
gain an enlargement and elevation of views, where is the 
benefit ? If, by tearing asunder names from things, we 
do not leave even the name or shadow of excellence, it is 
better to let them remain as they were ; for it is better to 
have something to admire than nothing — names, if not 
things — the shadow, if not the substance — the tinsel, if 
not the gold. All can now read and write equally ; and, 
it is therefore presumed, equally well. Anything short 
of this sweeping conclusion is an invidious distinction ; 
and those who claim it for themselves or others are exclu- 
sionists in letters. Every one at least can call names — 
can invent a falsehood, or repeat a story against those who 
have galled their pragmatical pretensions by really adding 
to the stock of general amusement or instruction. Every 
one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt : nine out of 
ten have the inclination. It is curious that, in an age 
when the most universally-admitted claim to public dis- 
tinction is literary merit, the attaining this distinction is 
almost a sure title to public contempt and obloquy. 1 They 
cry you up, because you are unknown, and do not excite % 

1 Is not this partly owing to the disappointment of the public at 
finding any defect in their idol ? 






On Beading Neic Books. 17 

their jealousy ; and run you down, when they have thus 
distinguished you, out of envy and spleen at the very idol 
they have set up. A public favourite is " kept like an 
apple in the jaw of an ape — first mouthed to be afterwards 
swallowed. When they need what you have gleaned, it 
is but squeezing you, and sponge you shall be dry again. " 
At first they think only of the pleasure or advantage they 
receive : but, on reflection, they are mortified at the supe- 
riority implied in this involuntary concession, and are 
determined to be even with you the very first opportunity. 
What is the prevailing spirit of modern literature ? To 
defame men of letters. What are the publications that 
succeed ? Those that pretend to teach the public that the 
persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up 
to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves, 
or a set of vagabonds, miscreants that should be hunted 
out of society. 1 Hence men of letters, losing their self- 

1 An old friend of mine [the Eev. Joseph Fawcett] when he read 
the abuse and Billingsgate poured out in certain Tory publications, 
used to congratulate himself upon it as a favourable sign of the 
times, and of the progressive improvement of our manners. Where 
we now called names, we formerly burnt each other at a stake ; and 
all the malice of the heart flew to the tongue and vented itself in 
scolding, instead of crusades and auto da fes — the nobler revenge 
of our ancestors for a difference of opinion. An author [Leigh 
Hunt, in the Examiner'] now libels a prince ; and, if he takes the 
law of him, or throws him into gaol, it is looked upon as a harsh 
and ungentlemanly proceeding. He, therefore, gets a dirty secre- 
tary to employ a dirty bookseller, to hire a set of dirty scribblers, 
to pelt him with dirt and cover him with blackguard epithets [this is 
probably levelled at Croker] till he is hardly in a condition to walk the 
streets. This is hard measure, no doubt, and base ingratitude on the 
part of the public, according to the imaginary dignity and natural 
precedence which authors take of kings ; but the latter are men, and 
will have their revenge where they can get it. They have no longer 
their old summary appeal — their will may still be good — to the dun- 
geon and the dagger. Those who " speak evil of dignities " may, 
therefore, think themselves well off in being merely sent to Coventry; 
and, besides, if they have pluck, they can make a Parthian retreat, 





18 On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

respect, become government tools, and prostitute their 
talents to the most infamous purposes, or turn dandy 
scribblers, and set up for gentlemen authors in their own 
defence. I like the Order of the Jesuits better than this ; 
they made themselves respected by the laity, kept their 
own secret, and did not prey on one another. Eesume 
then, oh ! Learning, thy robe pontifical ; clothe thyself 
in pride and purple ; join the sacred to the profane ; wield 
both worlds; instead of twopenny trash and mechanics' 
magazines, issue bulls and decretals ; say not, w^ there be 
light, but darkness visible ; draw a bandage over the eyes 
of the ignorant and unlettered ; hang the terrors of super- 
stition and despotism over them ; — and for thy pains they 
will bless thee ; children will pull off their caps as thou 
dost pass ; women will courtesy ; the old will wipe their 
beards ; and thou wilt rule once more over the base serving 
people, clowns, and nobles, with a rod of iron ! 

Florence, May, 1825. 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

" If to do were as easy as to teach others what were good to be 
done, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' 
palaces." 

Mr. Addison, it is said, was fond of tippling ; and Cur 11, 
it is added, when he called on him in the morning, used 
to ask as a particular favour for a glass of Canary, by way 
of ingratiating himself, and that the other might have a 
pretence to join him and finish the bottle. He fell a 
martyr to this habit, and yet (some persons more nice 

than wise exclaim) he desired that the young Earl of 

•• S ^ 

and shoot' poisoned arrows behind them. The good people of 
Florence lift up their hands when they are shown the caricatures 
in the Queens Matrimonial Ladder [by William Hone], and ask 
if they are really a likeness of the King? 



; 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 19 

Warwick might attend him on his death-bed, " to see how 
a Christian could die !" I see no inconsistency nor hy- 
pocrisy in this. A man may be a good Christian, a sound 
believer, and a sincere lover of virtue, and have, notwith- 
standing, one or more failings. If he had recommended 
it to others to get drunk, then I should have said he was 
a hypocrite, and that his pretended veneration for the 
Christian religion was a mere cloak put on to suit the 
purposes of fashion or convenience. His doing what it 
condemned was no proof of any such thing : " The spirit 
was willing, but the flesh was weak." He is a hypocrite 
who professes what he does not believe ; not he who does 
not practise all he wishes or approves. It might on the 
same ground be argued, that a man is a hypocrite who 
admires Eaphael or Shakspeare, because he cannot paint 
like the one, or write like the other. If any one really 
despised what he affected outwardly to admire, this would 
be hypocrisy. If he affected to admire it a great deal 
more than he really did, this would be cant. Sincerity 
has to do with the connexion between our words and 
thoughts, and not between our belief and actions. The 
last constantly belie the strongest convictions and resolu- 
tions in the best of men ; it is only the base and dishonest 
who give themselves credit with their tongue, for senti- 
ments and opinions which in their hearts they disown. 

I do not therefore think that the old theological maxim 
— " The greater the sinner, the greater the saint " — is so 
utterly unfounded. There is some mixture of truth in it. 
For as long as man is composed of two parts, body and soul, 
and while these are allowed to pull different ways, I see 
no reason why, in proportion to the length the one goes, 
the opposition or reaction of the other should not be more 
violent. It is certain, for example, that no one makes 
such good resolutions as the sot and the gambler in their 
moments of repentance, or can be more impressed with 
the horrors of their situation ; — should this disposition, 



20 On Cant and Hijpocrisy. 

instead of a transient, idle pang, by chance become lasting, 
who can be supposed to feel the beauty of temperance and 
economy more, or to look back with greater gratitude to 
their escape from the trammels of vice and passion ? 
Would the ingenious and elegant author of the Spectator 
feel less regard for the Scriptures, because they denounced 
in pointed terms the infirmity that ci most easily beset 
him," that was the torment of his life, and the cause of 
his death? Such reasoning would be true, if man was a 
simple animal or a logical machine, and all his faculties 
and impulses were in strict unison ; instead of which they 
are eternally at variance, and no one hates or takes part 
against himself more heartily or heroically than does the 
same individual. Does he not pass sentence on his own 
conduct ? Is not his conscience both judge and accuser ? 
What else is the meaning of all our resolutions against 
ourselves, as well as of our exhortations to others ? Video 
meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, is not the language of 
hyprocrisy, but of human nature. 

The hyprocrisy of priests has been a butt for ridicule 
in all ages ; but I am not sure that there has not been 
more wit than philosophy in it. A priest, it is true, is 
obliged to affect a greater degree of sanctity than ordinary 
men, and probably more than he possesses ; and this is so 
far, I am willing to allow, hypocrisy and solemn grimace. 
But I cannot admit, that though he may exaggerate or 
even make an ostentatious display of religion and virtue 
through habit and spiritual pride, that this is a proof he 
has not these sentiments in his heart, or that his whole 
behaviour is the mere acting of a part. His character, his 
motives, are not altogether pure and sincere : are they 
therefore all false and hollow? No such thing. It is 
-^r\trary to all our observation and experience so to inter- 
net it. We all wear some disguise — make some professions 
— use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better 
than we are ; and yet it is not denied that we have some 



On Cant and Htjpoerisy. 21 

good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, 
though we ma j endeavour to keep some others that we 
think less to our credit as much as possible in the back- 
ground : — why then should we not extend the same 
favourable construction ta monks and priests, who may 
be sometimes caught tripping as well as other men — with 
less excuse, no doubt ; but if it is also with greater 
remorse of conscience, which probably often happens, their 
pretensions are not all downright, barefaced imposture. 
Their sincerity, compared with that of other men, can only 
be judged of by the proportion between the degree of 
virtue they profess, and that which they practise, or at 
least carefully seek to realise. To conceive it otherwise 
is to insist that characters must be all perfect or all vicious 
— neither of which suppositions is even possible. If a 
clergyman is notoriously a drunkard, a debauchee, a 
glutton, or a scoffer, then for him to lay claim at the 
same time to extraordinary inspirations of faith or grace, 
is both scandalous and ridiculous. The scene between 
the Abbot and the poor brother in the Duenna, is an 
admirable exposure of this double-faced dealing. But 
because a parson has a relish for the good things of this 
life, or what is commonly called a liquorish tooth in his head 
(beyond what he would have it supposed by others, or even 
by himself), that he has therefore no fear or belief of the 
next, I hold for a crude and vulgar prejudice. If a poor 
half-starved parish priest pays his court to an olla podrida, 
or a venison pasty, with uncommon gusto, shall we say 
that he has no other sentiments in offering his devotions 
to a crucifix, or in counting his beads ? I see no more 
ground for such an inference, than for affirming that 
Handel was not in earnest when he -sat down to compose 
a Symphony, because he had at the same time perhaps a 
bottle of cordials in his cupboard ; or that Raphael was 
not entitled to the epithet of divine, because he was 
attached to the Fornarina. Everything has its turn in 



22 On Cant and 'Hypocrisy. 

this chequered scene of things, unless we prevent it from 
taking its turn by over-rigid conditions, or drive men to 
despair or the most callous effrontery, by erecting a 
standard of perfection, to which no one can conform in 
reality. Thomson, in his Castle of Indolence (a subject on 
which his pen ran riot), has indulged in rather a free 
description of " a little round, fat, oily man of God, 
who — 

" Shone all glistening with ungodly dew, 
If a tight damsel chanced to trippen by ; 
YVhich when observed, he shrunk into his mew, 
And straight would recollect his piety anew." J 

Now, was the piety in this case the less real, because it 
had been forgotten for a moment ? Or even if this 
motive should not prove the strongest in the end, would 
this therefore show that it was none, which is necessary 
to the argument here combated, or to make out our little 
plump priest a very knave? A priest may be honest, 
and yet err; as a woman may be modest, and yet half- 
inclined to be a rake. So the virtue of prudes may be 
suspected, though not their sincerity. The strength of 
their passions may make them more conscious of their 
weakness, and more cautious of exposing themselves ; but 
not more to blind others than as a guard upon themselves. 
Again, suppose a clergyman hazards a jest upon sacred 
subjects, does it follow that he does not believe a word of 
the matter ? Put the case that any one else, encouraged 
by his example, takes up the banter or levity, and see 
what effect it will have upon the reverend divine. He 
will turn round like a serpent trod upon, with all the 
vehemence and asperity of the mpst bigoted orthodoxy. 
Is this dictatorial and exclusive spirit then put on merely 
as a mask and to browbeat others ? No ; but he thinks 
he is privileged to trifle with the subject safely himself, 
from the store of evidence he has in reserve, and from the 
1 Canto I., et. 69, edit. 1841. 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 23 

nature of his functions ; but he is afraid of serious con- 
sequences being drawn from what others might say, or 
from his seeming to countenance it ; and the moment the 
Church is in danger, or his own faith brought in question, 
his attachment to each becomes as visible as his hatred 
to those who dare to impugn either the one or the other. 
A woman's attachment to her husband is n*ot to be suspec- 
ted, if she will allow no one to abuse him but herself. It 
has been remarked, that with the spread of liberal opinions, 
or a more general scepticism on articles of faith, the 
clergy and religious persons in general have become more 
squeamish and jealous of any objections to their favourite 
doctrines : but this is what must follow in the natural 
course of things — the resistance being always in proportion 
to the danger ; and arguments and books that were 
formerly allowed to pass unheeded, because it was supposed 
impossible they could do any mischief, are now denounced 
or prohibited with the most zealous vigilance, from a 
knowledge of the contagious nature of their influence and 
contents. So in morals, it is obvious that the greatest 
nicety of expression and allusion must be observed, where 
the manners are the most corrupt, and the imagination 
most easily excited, not out of mere affectation, but as a 
dictate of common sense and decency. 

One of the finest remarks that has been made in modern 
times, is that of Lord Shaftesbury, that there is no such 
thing as a perfect Theist, or an absolute Atheist ; that 
whatever may be the general conviction entertained on 
the subject, the evidence is not and cannot be at all times 
equally present to the mind ; that even if it were, we are 
not in the same humour to receive it : a fit of the gout, a 
shower of rain shakes our best-established conclusions ; 
and according to circumstances and the frame of mind we 
are in, our belief varies from the most sanguine enthusiasm 
to lukewarm indifference, or the most gloomy despair 
There is a point of conceivable faith which might prevent 



24 On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

any lapse from virtue, and reconcile all contrarieties 
between theory and practice ; but this is not to be looked 
for in the ordinary course of nature, and is reserved for 
the abodes of the blest. Here, " upon this bank and shoal 
of time," the utmost we can hope to attain is, a strong 
habitual belief in the excellence of virtue, or the dispen- 
sations of Providence ; and the conflict of the passions, 
and their occasional mastery over us, far from disproving 
or destroying this general, rational conviction, often 
fling us back more forcibly upon it, and like other in- 
fidelities and misunderstandings, produce all the alternate 
remorse and raptures of repentance and reconciliation. 

It has been frequently remarked that the most obstinate 
heretic or confirmed sceptic, witnessing the service of the 
Eoman Catholic church, the elevation of the host amidst 
the sounds of music, the pomp of ceremonies, the embellish- 
ments of art, feels himself spell-bound ; and is almost 
persuaded to become a renegado to his reason or his 
religion. Even in hearing a vespers chanted on the stage, 
or in reading an account of a torch-light procession in a 
romance, a superstitious awe creeps over the frame, and 
we are momentarily charmed out of ourselves. When 
such is the obvious and involuntary influence of circum- 
stances on the imagination, shall we say that a monkish 
recluse surrounded from his childhood by all this pomp, 
a stranger to any other faith, who has breathed no other 
atmosphere, and all whose meditations are bent on this one 
subject both by interest and habit and duty, is to be set 
down as a rank and heartless mountebank in the professions 
he makes of belief in it, because his thoughts may some- 
times wander to forbidden subjects, or his feet stumble on 
forbidden ground ? Or shall not the deep shadows of the 
woods in Vallombrosa enhance the solemnity of this 
feeling, or the icy horrors of the Grand Chartreux add to 
its elevation and its purity ? To argue otherwise is to 
misdeem of human nature, and to Limit its capacities for 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 25 

good or evil by some narrow-minded standard of our own. 
Man is neither a God nor a brute ; but there is a prosaic 
and a poetical side to everything concerning him, and it 
is as impossible absolutely and for a constancy to exclude 
either one or the other from the mind, as to make him 
live without air or food. The ideal, the empire of thought 
and aspiration after truth and good, is inseparable from 
the nature of an intellectual being — what right have we 
then to catch at every strife which in the mortified pro- 
fessors of religion the spirit wages with the flesh as grossly 
vicious ? or at every doubt, the bare suggestion of which 
fills them with consternation and despair, as a proof of 
the most glaring hypocrisy ? The grossnesses of religion 
and its stickling for mere forms as its essence, have given 
a handle, and a just one, to its impugners. At the feast 
of Eamadan (says Voltaire) the Mussulmans wash and 
pray five times a day, and then fall to cutting one 
another's throats again with the greatest deliberation and 
good-will. The two things, I grant, are sufficiently at 
variance ; but they are, I contend, equally sincere in both. 
The Mahometans are savages, but they are not the less 
true believers— they hate their enemies as heartily as 
they revere the Koran. This, instead of showing the 
fallacy of the ideal principle, shows its universality and 
indestructible essence. Let a man be as bad as he will, 
as little refined as possible, and indulge whatever hurtful 
jmssions or gross vices he thinks proper, these cannot 
occupy the whole of his time; and in the intervals 
between one scroundrel action and another he may and 
must have better thoughts, and may have recourse to those 
of religion (true or false) among the number, without in 
this being guilty of hypocrisy or of making a jest of what 
is considered as sacred. This, I take it, is the whole 
secret of Methodism, which is a sort of modern vent 
for the ebullitions of the spirit through the gaps of 
unrighteousness. 



26 On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

We often see that a person condemns in another the 
very thing he is guilty cf himself. Is this hypocrisy? 
It may, or it may not. If he really feels none of the 
disgust and abhorrence he expresses, this is quackery and 
impudence. But if he really expresses what he feels (and 
he easily may, for it is the abstract idea he contemplates 
in the case of another, and the immediate temptation to 
which he yields in his own, so that he probably is not 
even conscious of the identity or connexion between the 
two), then this is not hypocrisy, but want of strength and 
keeping in the moral sense. All morality consists in 
squaring our actions and sentiments to our ideas of what 
is fit and proper: and it is the incessant struggle and 
alternate triumph of the two principles, the ideal and the 
physical, that keeps up this " mighty coil and pudder " 
about vice and virtue, and is one great source of all the 
good and evil in the world. The mind of man is like a 
clock that is always running down, and requires to be as 
constantly wound up. The ideal principle is the master- 
key that winds it up, and without which it would come to 
a stand: the sensual and selfish feelings are the dead 
weights that pull it down to the gross and grovelling. 
Till the intellectual faculty is destroyed (so that the mind 
sees nothing beyond itself, or the present moment), it is 
impossible to have all brutal depravity ; till the material 
and physical are done away with (so that it shall con- 
template everything from a purely spiritual and disinter- 
ested point of view), it is impossible to have all virtue. 
There must be a mixture of the two, as long as man is 
compounded of opposite materials, a contradiction and an 
eternal competition for the mastery. I by no means 
think a single bad action condemns a man, for he 
probably condemns it as much as you do; nor a single 
bad habit, for he is probably trying all his life to get rid 
of it. A man is only thoroughly profligate when he has 
lost the sense of right and wrong ; or a thorough hypo- 



On Cant and Kypocrity. 27 

crite, when lie has not even the wish to be what he 
appears. The greatest offence against virtue is to speak 
ill of it. To recommend certain things is worse than to 
practise them. There may be an excuse for the last in 
the frailty of passion ; but the former can arise from 
nothing but an utter depravity of disposition. Any one 
may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love and 
aspiration after virtue : but he who maintains vice in 
theory, has not even the conception or capacity for virtue 
in his mind. Men err : fiends only make a mock at 
goodness. 

We sometimes deceive ourselves, and think worse of 
human nature than it deserves, in consequence of judging 
of character from names, and classes, and modes of life. 
No one is simply and absolutely any one thing, though he 
may be branded with it as a name. Some persons have 
expected to see his crimes written in the face of a mur- 
derer, and have been disappointed because they did not, as 
if this impeached the distinction between virtue and vice- 
Not at all. The circumstance only showed that the man 
was other things, and had other feelings besides those of 
a murderer. If he had nothing else — if he had fed on 
nothing else — if he had dreamt of nothing else but 
schemes of murder, his features would have expressed 
nothing else : but this perfection in vice is not to be 
expected from the contradictory and mixed nature of our 
motives. Humanity is to be met with in a den of 
robbers ; nay, modesty in a brothel. Even among the 
most abandoned of the other sex, there is not unfrequently 
found to exist (contrary to all that is generally supposed) 
one strong and individual attachment, which remains 
unshaken to the last. Virtue may be said to steal, like a 
guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy ; it 
clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven 
quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart. 
Again, there is a heroism in crime, as well as in virtue. 



28 On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion. 
This makes nothing in their favour, but is a proof of the 
heroical disinterestedness of man's nature, and that what- 
ever he does, he must fling a dash of romance and 
sublimity into it ; just as some grave biographer has said 
of Shakspeare, that " even when he killed a calf, he made 
a speech and did it in a great style." 

It is then impossible to get rid of this original distinc- 
tion and contradictory bias, and to reduce everything to 
the system of French levity and Epicurean indifference. 
Wherever there is a capacity of conceiving of things as 
different from what they are, there must be a principle of 
taste and selection — a disposition to . make them better, 
and a power to make them worse. Ask a Parisian 
milliner if she does not think one bonnet more becoming 
than another — a Parisian dancing master if French grace 
is not better than English awkwardness — a French cook if 
all sauces are alike — a French blacklegs if all throws are 
equal on the dice ? It is curious that the French nation 
restrict rigid rules and fixed principles to cookery and the 
drama, and maintain that the great drama of human life 
is entirely a matter of caprice and fancy. No one will 
assert that Eaphael's histories, that Claude's landscapes 
are not better than a daub : but if the expression in one 
of Eaphael's faces is better than the most mean and 
vulgar, how resist the consequence that the feeling so 
expressed is better also? It does not appear to me that 
all faces or all actions are alike. If goodness were only 
a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. 
There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear 
gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at 
friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will — the 
very names of these despised qualities are better than 
anything else that could be substituted for them, and 
embalm even the most envenomed satire against them. 
It is no small consideration that the mind is capable 






1 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 29 

even of feigning such things. So I would contend against 
that reasoning which would have it thought that if 
religion is not true, there is no difference between 
mankind and the beasts that perish ■ — I should say, that 
this distinction is equally proved, if religion is supposed 
to be a mere fabrication of the human mind ; the capa- 
city to conceive it makes the difference. The idea alone 
of an over-ruling Providence, or of a future state, is as 
much a distinctive mark of a superiority of nature, as the 
invention of the mathematics, which are true — or of 
poetry, which is a fable. Whatever the truth or falsehood 
of our speculations, the power to make them is peculiar to 
ourselves. 

The contrariety and warfare of different faculties and 
dispositions within us has not only given birth to the 
Manichean and Gnostic heresies, and to other super- 
stitions of the East, but will account for many of the 
mummeries and dogmas both of Popery and Calvinism — 
confession, absolution, justification by faith, &c. ; which, 
in the hopelessness of attaining perfection, and our 
dissatisfaction with ourselves for falling short of it, are 
all substitutes for actual virtue, and an attempt to throw 
the burthen of a task, to which we are unequal or only 
half disposed, on the merits of others, or on outward 
forms, ceremonies, and professions of faith. Hence the 
crowd of 

kl Eremites and friars, 
"White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery." 

If we do not conform to the law, we at least acknow- 
ledge the jurisdiction of the court. A person does 
wrong ; he is sorry for it ; and as he still feels himself 
liable to error, he is desirous to make atonement as well 
as he can, by ablutions, by tithes, by penance, by sacri- 
fices, or other voluntary demonstrations of obedience, 
which are in his power, though his passions are not, and 



30 On Cant and Hypocrisy. 

which prove that his will is not refractory, and that his 
understanding is right towards God. The stricter tenets 
of Calvinism, which allow of no medium between grace 
and reprobation, and doom man to eternal punishment for 
every breach of the moral law, as an equal offence against 
infinite truth and justice, proceed (like the paradoxical 
doctrine of the Stoics) from taking a half-view of this 
subject, and considering man as amenable only to the 
dictates of his understanding and his conscience, and not 
excusable from the temptations and frailty of human 
ignorance and passion. The mixing up of religion and 
morality together, or the making us accountable for 
every word, thought, or action, under no less a responsi- 
bility than our everlasting future welfare or misery, has 
also added incalculably to the difficulties of self-know- 
ledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of 
feeling, and made it almost impossible to distinguish the 
boundaries between the true and false, in judging of 
human conduct and motives. A religious man is afraid 
of looking into the state of his soul, lest at the same time 
he should reveal it to Heaven ; and tries to persuade 
himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character 
and feelings, they will remain a profound secret both here 
and hereafter. This is a strong engine and irresistible 
inducement to self-deception ; and the more zealous any 
one is in his convictions of the truth of religion, the more 
we may suspect the sincerity of his pretensions to piety 
and morality. 

Thus, though I think there is very little downright 
hypocrisy in the world, I do think there is a great deal of 
cant — " cant religious, cant political, cant literary," &c, 
as Lord Byron said. Though few peojDle have the face 
to set up for the very thing they in their hearts despise, 
we almost all want to be thought better than we are, and 
affect a greater admiration or abhorrence of certain things 
than we really feel. Indeed, some degree of affectation is 



On Cant and Hypocrisy. 31 

as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body ; we 
must overact our part in some measure, in order to 
produce any effect at all. There was formerly the two 
hours' sermon, the long-winded grace, the nasal drawl, the 
uplifted hands and eyes ; all which though accompanied 
with some corresponding emotion, expressed more than 
was really felt, and were in fact intended to make up for 
the conscious deficiency. As our interest in anything 
wears out with time and habit, we exaggerate the outward 
symptoms of zeal as mechanical helps to devotion, dwell 
the longer on our words as they are less felt, and hence 
the very origin of the term, cant. The cant of senti- 
mentality has succeeded to that of religion. There is a 
cant of humanity, of patriotism and loyalty — not that 
people do not feel these emotions, but they make too great 
sl fuss about them, and drawl out the expression of them 
till they tire themselves and others. There is a cant 
about Shakspeare. There is a cant about Political 
Economy just now. In short, there is and must be a cant 
about everything that excites a considerable degree of 
attention and interest, and that people would be thought 
to know and care rather more about them than they 
actually do. Cant is the voluntary overcharging or 
prolongation of a real sentiment ; hypocrisy is the setting 
up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no 
wish for. There are people who are made up of cant, 
that is, of mawkish affectation and sensibility ; but who 
have not sincerity enough to be hypocrites, that is, have 
not hearty dislike or contempt enough for anything, to 
give the lie to their puling professions of admiration and 
esteem for it. 



32 Merry England. 

Merry England. 

" St. George for merry England !" 

This old-fashioned epithet might be supposed to have been 
bestowed ironically, or on the old principle —TJt lucus a 
non lucendo. Yet there is something in the sound that 
hits the fancy, and a sort of truth beyond appearances. 1 
To be sure, it is from a dull, homely ground that the 
gleams of mirth and jollity break out ; but the streaks of 
light that tinge the evening sky are not the less striking 
on that account. The beams of the morning-sun shining 
on the lonely glades, or through the idle branches of the 
tangled forest, the leisure, the freedom, " the pleasure of 
going and coming without knowing where," the troops of 
wild deer, the sports of the chase, and other rustic gambols, 
were sufficient to justify the w r ell-known appellation of 
" Merry Sherwood," and in like manner, we may apply the 
phrase to Merry England. The smile is not the less 
sincere because it does not always play upon the cheek ; 
and the jest is not the less welcome, nor the laugh less 
hearty, because they happen to be a relief from care or 
leaden-eyed melancholy. The instances are the more 
precious as they are rare ; and we look forward to them 
with the greater goodwill, or back upon them with the 
greater gratitude, as we drain the last drop in the cup 
with particular relish. If not always gay or in good 
spirits, we are glad when any occasion draws us out of 
our natural gloom, and disposed to make the most of it. 
We may say with Silence in the play, <; I have been merry 
once ere now " — and this once was to serve him all his 
life ; for he was a person of wonderful silence and gravity, 
though " he chirped over his cups," and announced with 
characteristic glee that " there were pippins and cheese to 

1 Merry, in its earlier acceptation, signified nothing more than 
cheerful. — Ed. 



Merry England. 33 

come." Silence was in this sense a merry man, that is, he 
would be merry if he could, and a very great economy of 
wit, like very slender fare, was a banquet to him, from the 
simplicity of his taste and habits. " Continents," says 
Hobbes, " have most of what they contain " — and in this 
view it may be contended that the English are the merriest 
people in the world, since they only show it on high-days 
and holidays. They are then like a school-boy let loose 
from school, or like a dog that has slipped his collar. 
They are not gay like the French, who are one eternal 
smile of self-complacency, tortured into affectation, or spun 
out into languid indifference, nor are they voluptuous and 
immersed in sensual indolence, like the Italians ; but they 
have that sort of intermittent, fitful, irregular gaiety, which 
is neither worn out by habit, nor deadened by passion, but 
is sought with avidity as it takes the mind by surprise, is 
startled by a sense of oddity and incongruity, indulges its 
wayward humours or lively impulses, with perfect freedom 
and lightness of heart, and seizes occasion by the forelock, 
that it may return to serious business with more cheerful- 
ness, and have something to beguile the hours of thought 
or sadness. I do not see how there can be high spirits 
without low ones ; and everything has its price according 
to circumstances. Perhaps we have to pay a heavier tax 
on pleasure, than some others : what skills it, so long as 
our good spirits and good hearts enable us to bear it ? 

" They" (the English), says Froissart, "amused them- 
selves sadly after the fashion of their country" — Us se 
rejouissoient tristement 1 selon la coutume de leur pays. They 
have indeed a way of their own. Their mirth is a relaxa- 
tion from gravity, a challenge to dull care to be gone ; 
and one is not always clear at first, whether the appeal is 
successful. The cloud may still hang on the brow ; the 
ice may not thaw at once. To help them out in their new 

1 It may be doubted, however, whether both the English word sad 
and the French word triste signify heze more than sober, grave. — En. 

D 



34 Merry England. 

character is an act of charity. Anything short of hanging 
or drowning is something to begin with. They do not 
enter into their amusements the less doggedly because 
they may plague others. They like a thing the better for 
hitting them a rap on the knuckles, for making their blood 
tingle. They do not dance or sing, but they make good 
cheer — " eat, drink, and are merry." No people are 
fonder of field-sports, Christmas gambols, or practical 
jests. Blindnian's-buff, hunt-the-slipper, hot-cockles, and 
snap-dragon, are all approved English games, full of 
laughable surprises and " hair-breadth 'scapes/' and serve 
to amuse the winter fire-side after the roast-beef and plum- 
|3udding, the spiced ale and roasted crab, thrown (hissing- 
hot) into the foaming tankard. Punch (not the liquor, but 
the puppet) is not, I fear, of English origin ; but there is 
no place I take it, where he finds himself more at home or 
meets a more joyous welcome, where he collects greater 
crowds at the corners of streets, where he opens the eyes 
or distends the cheeks wider, or where the bangs and blows, 
the uncouth gestures, ridiculous anger, and screaming 
voice of the chief performer excite more boundless merri- 
ment or louder bursts of laughter among all ranks and 
sorts of people. An English theatre is the very throne of 
pantomime ; nor do I believe that the gallery and boxes of 
Drury Lane or Covent Garden filled on the proper occa- 
sion with holiday folks (big or little) yield the palm for 
undisguised, tumultuous, inextinguishable laughter to any 
spot in Europe. I do not speak of the refinement of the 
mirth (this is no fastidious speculation) but of its cor- 
diality, on the return of these long looked-for and licensed 
periods ; and I may add here, by way of illustration, that 
the English common people are a sort of grown children, 
spoiled and sulky perhaps, but full of glee and merriment, 
when their attention is drawn off by some sudden and 
striking object. The May-pole is almost gone out of 
fashion among us : but May-day, besides its flowering 



Merry England. 35 

hawthorns and its pearly dews, has still its boasted exhi- 
bition of painted chimney-sweepers and their Jack-o'-the- 
Green, whose tawdry finery, bedizened faces, unwonted 
gestures, and short-lived pleasures call forth good- 
humoured smiles and looks of sympathy in the spectators. 
There is no place where trap-ball, fives, prison-base, foot- 
ball, quoits, bowls are better understood or more success- 
fully practised ; and the very names of a cricket bat and 
ball make English fingers tingle. What happy days 
must " Long Robinson " have passed in getting ready his 
wickets and mending his bats, who, when two of the 
fingers of his right hand were struck off by the violence of 
a ball, had a screw fastened to it to hold the bat, and with 
the other hand still sent the ball thundering against the 
boards that bounded Old Lord's cricket- ground ! What 
delightful hours must have been his in looking forward to 
the matches that were to come, in recounting the feats he 
had performed in those that were past ! I have myself 
whiled away whole mornings in seeing him strike the 
ball (like a countryman mowing with a scythe) to the 
farthest extremity of the smooth, level, sun-burnt ground ; 
and with long, awkward strides count the notches that 
made victory sure ! Then again, cudgel-playing, quarter- 
staff, bull and badger-baiting, cock-fighting are almost the 
peculiar diversions of this island, and often objected to us 
as barbarous and cruel ; horse-racing is the delight and 
the ruin of numbers ; and the noble science of boxing is 
all our own. Foreigners can scarcely understand how we 
can squeeze pleasure out of this pastime ; the luxury of 
hard blows given or received ; the joy of the ring ; the 
perseverance of the combatants. 1 The English also excel, 

1 " The gentle and free passage of arms at Ashby " was, we are 
told, so called by the chroniclers of the time, on account of the feats 
of horsemanship and the quantity of knightly blood that was shed. 
This last circumstance was perhaps necessary to qualify it with 
the epithet of " gentle," in the opinion of some of these historians. 



30 Merry England. 

or are not excelled in wiring a hare, in stalking a deer, in 
shooting, fishing, and hunting. England to this day 
boasts her Eobin Hood and his merry men, that stout 
archer and outlaw and patron-saint of the sporting-calen- 
dar. What a cheerful sound is that of the hunters, 
issuing from the autumnal wood and sweeping over hill 

and dale! 

— ' ' A cry more tuneable 
Was never halloo'd to by hound or horn." 

What sparkling richness in the scarlet coats of the riders, 
what a glittering confusion in the pack, what spirit in the 
horses, what eagerness in the followers on foot, as they 
disperse over the plain, or force their way over hedge and 
ditch ! Surely, the coloured prints and pictures of these, 
hung up in gentlemen's halls and village alehouses, how- 



I think the reason why the English are the bravest nation on earth 
is, that the thought of blood or a delight in cruelty is not the chief 
excitement with th^m. Where it is, there is necessarily a reaction ; 
for though it may add to our eagerness and savage ferocity in 
inflicting wounds, it does not enable us to endure them with greater 
patience. The English are led to the attack or sustain it equally 
well, because they fight as they box, not out of malice, but to show 
pluck and manhood. Fair play and old England for ever ! This 
is the only bravery that will stand the test. There is the same 
determination and spirit shown in resistance as in attack ; but not 
the same pleasure in getting a cut with a sabre as in giving one. 
There is, therefore, always a certain degree of effeminacy mixed up 
with any approach to cruelty, since both have their source in the 
same principle, viz., an over -valuing of pain, (a) This was the 
reason the French (having the best cause and the best general in 
the world; ran away at Waterloo, because they were inflamed, 
furious, drunk with the blood of their enemies, but when it came to 
their turn, wanting the same stimulus, they were panic-struck, and 
their hearts and their senses failed them all at once. 

(a) Vanity is the same half-witted principle, compared with 
pride. It leaves men in the lurch when it is most needed; is 
mortified at being reduced to stand on the defensive, and relin- 
-w'hos the field to its more surly antagonist. 






Merry England. 37 

ever humble, as works of art, have more life and health 
and spirit in them, and mark the pith and nerve of the 
national character more creditably than the mawkish, 
sentimental, affected designs of Theseus and Pirithous, 
and iEneas and Dido, pasted on foreign salons a manger, 
and the interior of country-houses. If our tastes are not 
epic, nor our pretensions lofty, they are simple and our 
own ; and we may possibly enjoy our native rural sports 
and the rude remembrances of them, with the truer relish 
on this account, that they are suited to us and we to them. 
The English nation, too, are naturally " brothers of the 
angle." This pursuit implies just that mixture of 
patience and pastime, of vacancy and thoughtfulness, of 
idleness and business, of pleasure and of pain, which is 
suited to the genius of an Englishman, and as I suspect, 
of no one else in the same degree. He is eminently 
gifted to stand in the situation assigned by Dr. Johnson to 
the angler, " at one end of a rod with a worm at the 
other." I should suppose no other language than ours 
can show such a book as an often-mentioned one, Walton's 
Complete Angler — so full of naivete, of unaffected sprightli- 
ness, of busy trifling, of dainty songs, of refreshing brooks, 
of shady arbours, of happy thoughts and of the herb 
called Heart's Ease ! Some persons can see neither the 
wit nor wisdom of this genuine volume, as if a book as 
well as a man might not have a personal character belong- 
ing to it, amiable, venerable from the spirit of joy and 
thorough goodness it manifests, independently of acute 
remarks or scientific discoveries ; others object to the 
cruelty of Walton's theory and practice of trout-fishing — 
for my part, I should as soon charge an infant with cruelty 
for killing a fly, and 1 feel the same sort of pleasure in 
reading his book as I should have done in the company of 
this happy, child-like old man, watching his ruddy cheek, 
his laughing eye, the kindness of his heart, and the dex- 
terity of his hand in seizing his finny prey ! It must be 



38 Merry England. 

confessed, there is often an odd sort of materiality in 
English sports and recreations. I have known several 
persons, whose existence consisted wholly in manual 
exercises, and all whose enjoyments lay at their finger- 
ends. Their greatest happiness was in cutting a stick, in 
mending a cabbage-net, in digging a hole in the ground, in 
hitting a mark, turning a lathe, or in something else of 
the same kind, at which they had a certain knack. Well 
is it when we can amuse ourselves with such trifles and 
without injury to others ! This class of character, which 
the Spectator has immortalised in the person of Will 
Wimble, is still common among younger brothers and 
retired gentlemen of small incomes in town or country. 
London is half suburbs. The suburbs of Paris are a 
desert, and you see nothing but crazy wind-mills, stone- 
walls, and a few straggling visitants, in spots where in 
England you would find a thousand villas, a thousand ter- 
races, crowned with their own delights, or be stunned with 
the noise of bowling-greens and tea-gardens, or stifled with 
the fumes of tobacco mingling with fragrant shrubs, or the 
clouds of dust raised by half the population of the metro- 
polis panting and toiling in search of a mouthful of fresh 
air. The Parisian is, perhaps, as well (or better) contented 
with himself wherever he is, stewed in his shop or his 
garret ; the Londoner is miserable in these circumstances, 
and glad to escape from them. 1 Let no one object to the 
gloomy appearance of a London Sunday, compared with a 
Parisian one. It is a part of our politics and our religion : 
we would not have James the First's Book of Sports. 2 
thrust down our throats : and besides, it is a part of our 
character to do one thing at a time, and not to be dancing 

1 The English are fond of change of scene ; the French of change 
of posture ; the Italians like to sit still, an<l do nothing. 

2 The King's Maiesties Declaration to his Subjects concerning law- 
full Sports io be used, published by James I. in 1618, and reissued 
by his son in 1633. — En. 



Merry England. 39 

a jig and on our knees in the same breath. It is true the 
Englishman spends his Sunday evening at the ale-house — 

" And e'en on Sunday 



He drinks with Kir ton Jean till Monday " — 

but he only unbends and waxes mellow by degrees, and 
sits soaking till he can neither sit, stand, nor go : it is his 
vice, and a beastly one it is, but not a proof of any in- 
herent distaste to mirth or good fellowship. Neither ban 
foreigners throw the carnival in our teeth with any effect : 
those who have seen it (at Florence, for example), will 
say that it is duller than any thing in England. Our 
Bartholomew-Fair is Queen Mab herself to it ! What can 
be duller than a parcel of masks moving about the streets 
and looking as grave and monotonous as possible from day 
to day, and with the same lifeless formality in their limbs 
and gestures as in their features? One might as well 
expect variety and spirit in a procession of wax-work 
figures. We must be hard run indeed, when we have 
recourse to a pasteboard proxy to set off our mirth : a 
mask may be a very good cover for licentiousness (though 
of that I saw no signs), but it is a very bad exponent of 
wit and humour. I should suppose there is more drollery 
and unction, in the caricatures in Fore's shop-window, 
than in all the masks in Italy, without exception. 1 

The humour of English writing and description has 
often been wondered at ; and it flows from the same source 

1 Bells are peculiar to England. They jangle them in Italy 
during the carnival as boys do with us at Shrovetide ; but they 
have no notion of ringing them. The sound of village bells never 
cheers you in travelling, nor have you the lute or cittern in their 
stead. The expression of " Merry Bells " is a favourite, and not one 
of the least appropriate in our language : 

" For him the merry bells had rung, I ween, 
If in this nook of quiet bells had ever been." 

Castle of Indolence. 1 

1 Canto i., st. 62. 



40 Merry England. 

as tire merry traits of our character. A degree of bar- 
barism and rusticity seems necessary to the perfection of 
humour. The droll and laughable depend on peculiarity 
and incongruity of character. But with the progress of 
refinement, the peculiarities of individuals and of classes 
wear out or lose their sharp, abrupt edges ; nay, a certain 
slowness and dulness of understanding is required to be 
struck with odd and unaccountable appearances, for which 
a greater facility of apprehension can sooner assign an 
explanation that breaks the force of the seeming absurdity, 
and to which a wider scope of imagination is more easily 
reconciled. Clowns and country people are more amused, 
are more disposed to laugh and make sport of the dress of 
strangers, because from their ignorance the surprise is 
greater, and they cannot conceive anything to be natural 
or proper to which they are unused. Without a given 
portion of hardness and repulsiveness of feeling the ludi- 
crous cannot well exist. Wonder and curiosity, the attri- 
butes of inexperience, enter greatly into its composition. 
Now it appears to me that the English are (or were) just 
at that mean point between intelligence and obtuseness, 
which must produce the most abundant and happiest crop 
of humour. Absurdity and singularity glide over the 
French mind without jarring or jostling with it ; or they 
evaporate in levity : with the Italians they are lost in 
indolence or pleasure. The ludicrous takes hold of the 
English imagination, and clings to it with all its ramifica- 
tions. We resent any difference or peculiarity of appear- 
ance at first, and yet, having not much malice at our hearts, 
we are glad to turn it into a jest — we are liable to be 
offended, and as willing to be pleased — struck with oddity 
from not knowing what to make of it, we wonder and 
burst out a laughing at the eccentricity of others, while we 
follow our own bent from wilfulness or simplicity, and 
thus afford them, in our turn, matter for the indulgence of 
the comic vein. It is possible that a greater refinement 



Merry England. 41 

of manners may give birth to finer distinctions of satire 
and a nicer tact for the ridiculous : but our insular 
situation and character are, I should say, most likely to 
foster, as they have in fact fostered, the greatest quantity 
of natural and striking humour, in spite of our plodding 
tenaciousness, and want both of gaiety and quickness of 
perception. A set of raw recruits with their awkward 
movements and unbending joints are laughable enough ; 
but they cease to be so, when they have once been drilled 
into discipline and uniformity So it is with nations that 
lose their angular points and grotesque qualities with educa- 
tion and intercourse : but it is in a mixed state of manners 
that comic humour chiefly flourishes, for, in order that the 
drollery may not be lost, we must have spectators of the 
passing scene who are able to appreciate and embody its 
most remarkable features — wits as well as butts for ridicule. 
I shall mention two names in this department, which may 
serve to redeem the national character from absolute duU 
ness and solemn pretence — Fielding and Hogarth. These 
were thorough specimens of true English humour; yet 
both were grave men. In reality, too high a pitch of 
animal spirits runs away with the imagination, instead of 
helping it to reach the goal ; is inclined to take the jest 
for granted when it ought to work it out with patient and 
marked touches, and it ends in vapid flippancy and imper- 
tinence. Among our neighbours on the Continent, Moliere 
and Eabelais carried the freedom of wit and humour to an 
almost incredible height ; but they rather belonged to the 
old French school, and even approach and exceed the 
English licence and extravagance of conception. I do not 
consider Congreve's wit (though he belongs to us) as 
coming under the article here spoken of; for his genius 
is anything but merry. Lord Byron was in the habit of 
railing at the spirit of our good old comedy, and of abusing 
Shakspeare's Clowns and Fools, which he said the refine- 
ment of the French and Italian stage would not endure, 



42 Merry England. , 

and which only our grossness and puerile taste could 
tolerate. In this I agree with him ; and it is pat to my 
purpose. I. flatter myself that we are almost the only 
people who understand and relish nonsense. We are not 
" merry and wise," but indulge our mirth to excess and 
folly. When we trifle, we trifle in good earnest ; and 
having once relaxed our hold of the helm, drift idly down 
the stream, and, delighted with the change, are tossed 
about " by every little breath " of whim or caprice, 

" That under Heaven is blown." 

All we then want is to proclaim a truce with reason, and 
to be pleased with as little expense of thought or preten- 
sion to wisdom as possible. This licensed fooling is 
carried to its very utmost length in Shakspeare, and in 
some other of our elder dramatists, without, perhaps, 
sufficient warrant or the same excuse. Nothing can justify 
this extreme relaxation but extreme tension. Shakspeare's 
trifling does indeed tread upon the very borders of vacancy : 
his meaning often hangs by the very slenderest threads. 
For this he might be blamed if it did not take away our 
breath to follow his eagle flights, or if he did not at other 
times make the cordage of our hearts crack. After our 
heads ache with thinking, it is fair to play the fool. The 
clowns were as proper an appendage to the gravity of our 
antique literature, as fools and dwarfs were to the stately 
dignity of courts and noble houses in former days. Of all 
people, they have the best right to claim a total exemption 
from rules and rigid formality, who, when they have any- 
thing of importance to do, set about it with the greatest 
earnestness and perseverance, and are generally grave and 
sober to a proverb. 1 Swift, who wrote more idle or non- 
sense verses than any man, was the severest of moralists ; 
and his feelings and observations morbidly acute. Did 

1 The strict formality of French serious writing is resorted to as 
a foil to the natural levity of their character. 



Merry England. 43 

not Lord Byron himself follow up his Childe Harold with 
his Don Juan? — not that I insist on what he did as an 
illustration of the English character. He was one of the 
English Nobility, not one of the English people ; and his 
occasional ease and familiarity were in my mind equally 
constrained and affected, whether in relation to the pre- 
tensions of his rank or the efforts of his genius. 

They ask you in France, how you pass your time in 
England without amusements ; and can with difficulty 
believe that there are theatres in London, still less that 
they are larger and handsomer than those in Paris. That 
we should have comic actors, " they own surprises them." 
They judge of the English character in the lump as one 
great jolter-head, containing all the stupidity of the 
country, as the large ball at the top of the Dispensary in 
Warwick-lane, from its resemblance to a gilded pill, has 
been made to represent the whole pharmacopoeia and pro- 
fessional quackery of the kingdom. They have no more 
notion, for instance, how we should have such an actor as 
Liston on our stage, than if we were to tell them we have 
parts performed by a sea-otter ; nor, if they were to see 
him, would they be much the wiser, or know what to think 
of his unaccountable twitches of countenance or nonde- 
script gestures, of his teeth chattering in his head, his eyes 
that seem dropping from their sockets, his nose that is 
tickled by a jest as by a feather, and shining with self- 
complacency as if oiled, his ignorant conceit, his gaping 
stupor, his lumpish vivacity in Lubin Log or Tony Lumpkin ; 
for as our rivals do not wind up the machine to such a 
determined intensity of purpose, neither have they any 
idea of its running down to such degrees of imbecility and 
folly, or coming to an absolute stand-still and lack of 
meaning, nor can they enter into or be amused with the 
contrast. No people ever laugh heartily who can give a 
reason for their doing so: and I believe the English in 
general are not yet in this predicament. They are not 



44 Merry England. 

metaphysical, but very much in a state of nature ; and 
this is one main ground why I give them credit for being 
merry, notwithstanding appearances. Their mirth is not 
the mirth of vice or desperation, but of innocence arid a 
native wildness. They do not cavil or boggle at niceties, 
or merely come to the edge of a joke, but break their necks 
over it with a wanton " Here goes," where others make a 
pirouette and stand upon decorum. The French cannot 
however, be persuaded of the excellence of our comic stage, 
nor of the store we set by it. When they ask what amuse- 
ments we have, it is plain they can never have heard of 
Mrs. Jordan, nor King, nor Bannister, nor Suett, nor 
Munden, nor Lewis, nor little Simmons, nor Dodd, and 
Parsons, and Emery, and Miss Pope, and Miss Farren, 
and all those who even in my time have gladdened a 
nation and " made life's business like a summer's dream." 
Can I think of them, and of their names that glittered in 
the play-bills when I was young, exciting all the flutter of 
hope and expectation of seeing them in their favourite 
parts of Nell, or Little Pickle, or Touchstone, or Sir Peter 
Teazle, or Lenitive in the i Prize/ or Lingo, or Crabtree, or 
Nipperkin, or old Domton, or Banger, or the Copper Cap- 
tain, or Lord Sands, or Filch, or Moses, or Sir Andrew 
Aguecheek, or Acres, or Elbow, or Hodge, or Flora, or the 
Duenna, or Lady Teazle, or Lady Grace, or of the gaiety 
that sparkled in all eyes, and the delight that overflowed 
all hearts, as they glanced before us in these parts, 

" Throwing a gaudy shadow upon life v — 

and not feel my heart yearn within me, or couple the 
thoughts of England and the spleen together ? Our 
cloud has at least its rainbow tints; ours is not one long, 
polar night of cold and dulness, but we have the gleaming 
lights of fancy to amuse us, the household fires of truth 
and genius to warm us. We can go to a play and see 
Liston ; or stay at home and read Roderick Random ; or 



Merry England. 45 

have Hogarth's prints of Marriage a la Mode hanging 
round our room. Tut ! " there's livers" even in England, 
as well as "out of it." We are not quite the forlorn hope 
of humanity, the last of nations. The French look at us 
across the Channel, and seeing nothing but water and a 
cloudy mist, think that this is England. If they have 
any farther idea of us, it is of George III. and our Jack 
tars, the House of Lords and House of Commons ; and 
this is no great addition to us. To go beyond this, 
to talk of arts and elegances as having taken up their 
abode here, or to say that Mrs. Abington was equal to 
Mademoiselle Mars, and that we at one time got up the 
School for Scandal, as they do the Misanthrope, is to per- 
suade them that Iceland is a pleasant winter-retreat, or to 
recommend the whale-fishery as a classical amusement. 
The French are the cockneys of Europe, and have no idea 
how anyone can exist out of Paris, or be alive without 
incessant grimace and jabber. Yet what imports it ? 
What! though the joyous train I have just enumerated 
were, perhaps, never heard of in the precincts of the 
Palais-Eoyal, is it not enough that they gave pleasure 
where they were, to those who saw and heard them? 
Must our laugh, to be sincere, have its echo on the other 
side of the water ? Had not the French their favourites 
and their enjoyments at the time, that we knew nothing 
of? Why then should we not have ours (and boast of 
them too) without their leave? A monopoly of self- 
conceit is not a monopoly of all other advantages. The 
English, when they go abroad, do not take away the 
prejudice against them by their looks. We seem duller 
and sadder than we are. As I write this, 1 I am sitting in 
the open air in a beautiful valley, near Yevey : Clarens is 
on my left, the Dent de Jamant is behind me, the rocks 
of Meillerie opposite : under my feet is a green bank, 

1 The article was written, apparently, at Vevey in the summer 
of 1825. See Memoirs of William Razlitt, 1867, chap. xv. — Ed. 



46 Merry England. 

enamelled with white and purple flowers, in which a dew 
drop here and there still glitters with pearly light — 

" And gaudy butterflies flutter around." 

Intent upon the scene and upon the thoughts that stir 
within me, I conjure up the cheerful passages of my life, 
and a crowd of happy images appear before me. No 
one would see it in my looks— my eyes grow dull and 
fixed, and I seem rooted to the spot, as all this phan- 
tasmagoria passes in review before me, glancing a reflex 
lustre on the face of the world and nature. But the 
traces of pleasure, in my case, sink into an absorbent 
ground of thoughtful melancholy, and require to be 
brought out by time and circumstances, or (as the critics 
tell you) by the varnish of style ! 

The comfort, on which the English lay so much stress, 
is of the same character, and arises from the same source 
as their mirth. Both exist by contrast and a sort of 
contradiction. The English are certainly the most un- 
comfortable of all people in themselves, and therefore it 
is that they stand in need of every kind of comfort and 
accommodation. The least thing puts them out of their 
way, and therefore everything must be in its place. They 
are mightily offended at disagreeable tastes and smells, 
and therefore they exact the utmost neatness and nicety. 
They are sensible of heat and cold, and therefore they 
cannot exist, unless everything is snug and warm, or else 
open and airy, where they are. They must have " all 
appliances and means to boot." They are afraid of inter- 
ruption and intrusion, and therefore they shut themselves 
up in in-door enjoyments and by their own firesides. It 
is not that they require luxuries (for that implies a high 
degree of epicurean indulgence and gratification), but they 
cannot do without their comforts ; that is, whatever tends 
to supply their physical wants, and ward off physical 
pain and annoyance. As they have not a fund of animal 



On a Sun-dial. 47 

spirits and enjoyments in themselves, they cling to external 
objects for support, and derive solid satisfaction from the 
ideas of order, cleanliness, plenty, property, and domestic 
quiet, as they seek for diversion from odd accidents and 
grotesque surprises, and have the highest possible relish 
not of voluptuous softness, but of hard knocks and dry 
blows, as one means of ascertaining their personal identity. 



On a Sun-dial. 1 

" To carve out dials quaintly, point by point." 

Shakspeare. 2 

Horas non numero nisi serenas — is the motto of a sun- 
dial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in 
the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all 
conceits it is surely the most classical. "I count only 
the hours that are serene." What a bland and care- 
dispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on 
the dial-plate as the sky lours, and time presents only a 
blank unless as its progress is marked by what is joyous, 
and all that is not happy sinks into oblivion! What a 
fine lesson is conveyed to the mind — to take no note of 
time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles and 
neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright 
and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of 
things, and letting the rest slip from our imaginations, 
unheeded or forgotten ! How different from the common 
art of self-tormenting ! For myself, as I rode along the 
Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, slimy 
waves, my sensations were far from comfortable ; but the 
reading this inscription on the side of a glaring wall in 
an instant restored me to myself; and still, whenever I 
think of or repeat it, it has the power of wafting me into 
the region of pure and blissful abstraction. I cannot 

1 Written in Italy, in 1825.— Ed. 

2 Henry VI., part 3, ii, 5. [Dyce's edit. 1868, v. 265.] 



48 On a Sun-dial. 

help fancying it to be a legend of Popish superstition. 
Some monk of the dark ages must have invented and 
bequeathed it to us, who, loitering in trim gardens and 
watching the silent march of time, as his fruits ripened in 
the sun or his flowers scented the balmy air, felt a mild 
languor pervade his senses, and having little to do or to 
care for, determined (in imitation of his sun-dial) to efface 
that little from his thoughts or draw a veil over it, 
making of his life one long dream of quiet ! Horas non 
numero nisi serenas — he might repeat, when the heavens 
were overcast and the gathering storm scattered the 
falling leaves, and turn to his books and wrap himself 
in his golden studies ! Out of some such mood of mind, 
indolent, elegant, thoughtful, this exquisite device (speak- 
ing volumes) must have originated. 

Of the several modes of counting time, that by the sun- 
dial is perhaps the most apposite and striking, if not the 
most convenient or comprehensive. It does not obtrude 
its observations, though it " morals on the time," and, by 
its stationary character, forms a contrast to the most 
fleeting of all essences. It stands sub dio — under the 
marble air, and there is some connexion between the 
image of infinity and eternity. I should also like to 
have a sun-flower growing near it with bees fluttering 
round. 1 It should be of iron to denote duration, and 
have a dull, leaden look. I hate a sun-dial made of wood, 
which is rather calculated to show the variations of the 
seasons, than the progress of time, slow, silent, imper- 
ceptible, chequered with light and shade. If our hours 
were all serene, we might probably take almost as little 
note of them, as the dial does of those that are clouded. ■ 
It is the shadow thrown across, that gives us warning of 
their flight. Otherwise, our impressions would take the 

1 Is this a verbal fallacy ? Or in the close, retired, sheltered 
scene which I have imagined to myself, is not the sun-flower a 
natural accompaniment of the suLi-dial ? 









On a Sun-dial. 49 

same undistinguishable hue ; we should scarce be con- 
scious of our existence. Those who have had none of the 
cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been 
obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the 
next to vary the prospect before them. Most of the 
methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, 
been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, 
finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some 
pains to see how they got rid of it. The hour-glass is, I 
suspect, an older invention ; and it is certainly the most 
defective of all. Its creeping sands are not indeed an 
unapt emblem of the minute, countless portions of our 
existence ; and the manner in which they gradually slide 
through the hollow glass and diminish in number till not 
a single one is left, also illustrates the way in which our 
years slip from us by stealth : but as a mechanical 
invention, it is rather a hindrance than a help, for it 
requires to have the time, of which it pretends to count 
the precious moments, taken up in attention to itself, and 
in seeing that when one end of the glass is empty, we 
turn it round, in order that it may go on again, or else 
all our labour is lost, and we must wait for some other 
mode of ascertaining the time before we can recover our 
reckoning and proceed as before. The philosopher in his 
cell, the cottager at her spinning-wheel must, however, 
find an invaluable acquisition in this "companion of the 
lonely hour," as it has been called, 1 which not only serves 
to tell how the time goes, but to fill up its vacancies. 
What a treasure must not the little box seem to hold, as 
if it were a sacred deposit of the very grains and fleeting 
sands of life ! What a business, in lieu of other more im- 
portant avocations, to see it out to the last sand, and then 
to renew the process again on the instant, that there may 

1 " Once more, companion of the lonely hour, 
I'll turn thee up again." 
BloomfieloVs Poems— The Widow to her Hour-glass. 

E 



50 On a Sun-dial. 

not be the least flaw or error in the account ! What a 
strong sense must be brought home to the mind of the 
value and irrecoverable nature of the time that is fled ; 
what a thrilling, incessant consciousness of the slippery 
tenure by which we hold what remains of it ! Our very 
existence must seem crumbling to atoms, and running 
down (without a miraculous reprieve) to the last fragment. 
" Dust to dust and ashes to ashes " is a text that might be 
fairly inscribed on an hour-glass: it is ordinarily asso- 
ciated with the scythe of Time and a Death's-head, as a 
memento mori ; and has, no doubt, furnished many a tacit 
hint to the apprehensive and visionary enthusiast in 
favour of a resurrection to another life ! 

The French give a different turn to things, less sombre 
and less edifying. A common and also a very pleasing 
ornament to a clock, in Paris, is a figure of Time seated 
in a boat which Cupid is rowing along, with the motto, 
& Amour fait passer le Temps — which the wits again have 
travestied into Le Temps fait passer IS Amour. All this 
is ingenious and well ; but it wants sentiment. I like 
a people who have something that they love and something 
that they hate, and with whom everything is not alike a 
matter of indifference or pour passer le temps. The French 
attach no i nportance to anything, except for the moment ; 
they are only thinking how they shall get rid of one 
sensation for another ; all their ideas are in transitu. 
Everything is detached, nothing is accumulated. It 
would be a million of years before a Frenchman would 
think of the Horas non numero nisi serenas. Its im- 
passioned repose and ideal voluptuousness are as far from 
their breasts as the poetry of that line in Shakspeare — 
" How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! " * 
They never arrive at the classical — or the romantic. They 
blow the bubbles of vanity, fashion, and pleasure ; but 
they do not expand their perceptions into refinement, or 
1 Merchant of Venice, v, 1. [Dyce's edit. 1868, ii, 409.] 



On a Sun-dial '. 51 

strengthen them into solidity. Where there is nothing 
fine in the groundwork of the imagination, nothing fine 
in? the superstructure can be produced. They are light, 
airy, fanciful (to give them their due) — but when they 
attempt to be serious (beyond mere good sense) they are 
either dull or extravagant. When the volatile salt has 
flown off, nothing but a caput mortuum remains. They 
have infinite crotchets and caprices with their clocks and 
watches, w r hich seem made for anything but to tell the 
hour — gold repeaters, watches with metal covers, clocks 
with hands to count the seconds. There is no escaping 
from quackery and impertinence, even in our attempts to 
calculate the w T aste of time. The years gallop fast enough 
for me, without remarking every moment as it flies ; and 
further, I must say I dislike a watch, (whether of French 
or English manufacture) that comes to me like a footpad 
with its face muffled, and does not present its clear, open 
aspect like a friend, and point with its finger to the time 
of day. All this opening and shutting of dull, heavy 
cases (under pretence that the glass-lid is liable to be 
broken, or lets in the dust or air and obstructs the 
movements of the watch), is not to husband time, but 
to give trouble. It is mere pomposity and self-im- 
portance, like consulting a mysterious oracle that one 
carries about with one in one's pocket, instead of asking 
a common question of an acquaintance or companion. 
There are two clocks which strike the hour in the room 
where I am. This I do not like. In the first place, I 
do not want to be reminded twice how the time goes 
(it is like the second tap of a saucy servant at your door 
when perhaps you have no wish to get up) : in the next 
place, it is starting a difference of opinion on the subject, 
and I am averse to every appearance of wrangling and 
disputation, Time moves on the same, whatever disparity 
there may be in our mode of keeping count of it, like 
true fame in spite of the cavils and contradictions of 



52 On a Sun-dial. 

the critics. I am no friend to repeating watches. The 
only pleasant association I have with them is the account 
given by Eousseau of some French lady, who sat up 
reading the New Eloise when it first came out, and 
ordering her maid to sound the repeater, found it was 
too late to go to bed, and continued reading on till 
morning. Yet how different is the interest excited by 
this story from the account which Eousseau somewhere 
else gives of his sitting up with his father reading 
romances, when a boy, till they were startled by the 
swallows twittering in their nests at daybreak, and the 
father cried out, half angry and ashamed—" Allons, mon 
fils ; je mis plus enfant que toi ! " In general, I have 
heard repeating-watches sounded in stage-coaches at 
night, when some fellow-traveller suddenly awaking and 
wondering what was the hour, another has very de- 
liberately taken out his watch, and pressing the spring, 
it has counted out the time ; each petty stroke acting like 
a sharp puncture on the ear, and informing me of the 
dreary hours I had already passed, and of the more dreary 
ones I had to wait till morning. 

The great advantage, it is true, which clocks have over 
watches and other dumb reckoners of time is, that for 
the most part they strike the hour — that they are as it 
were the mouth-pieces of time ; that they not only point 
it to the eye, but impress it on the ear ; that they " lend 
it both an understanding and a tongue." Time thus 
speaks to us in an audible and warning voice. Objects 
of sight are easily distinguished by the sense, and suggest 
useful reflections to the mind ; sounds, from their inter- 
mittent nature, and perhaps other causes, appeal more 
to the imagination, and strike upon the heart. But to 
do this, they must be unexpected and involuntary — there 
must be no trick in the case— they should not be squeezed 
out with a finger and a thumb ; there should be nothing 
optional, personal in their occurrence ; they should be 



On a Sun-dial, 53 

xike stern, inflexible monitors, that nothing can prevent 
from discharging their duty. Surely, if there is any- 
thing with which we should not mix up our vanity and 
self-consequence, it is with Time, the most independent 
of all things. All the sublimity, all the superstition that 
hang upon this palpable mode of announcing its flight, 
are chiefly attached to this circumstance. Time would 
lose its abstracted character, if we kept it like a curiosity 
or a jack-in-a-box : its prophetic warnings would have 
no effect, if it obviously spoke only at our prompting 
like a paltry ventriloquism. The clock that tells the 
coming, dreaded hour — the castle bell, that "with it? 
brazen throat and iron tongue, sounds one unto the 
drowsy ear of night " — the curfew, " swinging slow with 
sullen roar " o'er wizard stream or fountain, are like a 
voice from other worlds, big with unknown events. The 
last sound, which is still kept up as an old custom in 
many parts of England, is a great favourite with me. 3 
used to hear it when a boy. It tells a tale of other times 
The days that are past, the generations that are gone, 
the tangled forest glades and hamlets brown of my native 
country, the woodsman's art, the Norman warrior armed 
for the battle or in his festive hall, the conqueror's iron 
rule and peasant's lamp extinguished, all start up at the 
clamorous peal, and fill my mind with fear and wonder. 
I confess, nothing at present interests me but what ha? 
been — the recollection of the impressions of my early 
life, or events long past, of which only the dim traces 
remain in a mouldering ruin or half-obsolete custom. 
That things should be that are now no more, creates in my 
mind the most unfeigned astonishment. I cannot solve 
the mystery of the past, nor exhaust my pleasure in it. 
The years, the generations to come, are nothing to me. 
We care no more about the world in the year 2300 than 
we do about one«of the planets. We might as well make 
a voyage to the moon as think of stealing a march upon 



51 On a Sun-dial. 

Time with impunity. De non apparentibus et non ex- 
istentibus eadem est ratio. Those who are to come after 
us and push us from the stage seem like upstarts and 
pretenders, that may be said to exist in vacuo, we know 
not upon what, except as they are blown up with vanity 
and self-conceit by their patrons among the moderns. 
But the ancients are true and bond fide people, to whom 
we are bound by aggregate knowledge and filial ties, and 
in whom, seen by the mellow light of history, we feel our 
own existence doubled and our pride consoled, as we 
ruminate on the vestiges of the past. The public in 
general, however, do not carry this speculative indifference 
about the future to what is to happen to themselves, or 
to the part they are to act in the busy scene. For my 
own part, I do ; and the only wish I can form, or that 
ever prompts the passing sigh, would be to live some of 
my years over again — they would be those in which I 
enjoyed and suffered most ! 

The ticking of a clock in the night has nothing very 
interesting nor very alarming in it, though superstition 
has magnified it into an omen. In a state of vigilance or 
debility, it preys upon the spirits like the persecution of 
a teazing, pertinacious insect ; and haunting the imagina- 
tion after it has ceased in reality, is converted into the 
death-watch. Tirae is rendered vast by contemplating 
its minute portions thus repeatedly and painfully urged 
upon its attention, as the ocean in its immensity is 
composed of water-drops. A clock striking with a clear 
and silver sound is a great relief in such circumstances, 
breaks the spell, and resembles a sylph-like and friendly 
spirit in the room. Foreigners with all tbeir tricks and 
contrivances upon clocks and time-pieces, are strangers 
to the sound of village- bells, though perhaps a people 
that can dance may dispense with them. They impart 
a pensive, wayward pleasure to the mind, and are a kind 
of chronology of happy events, often serious in the 



On a Sun-dial. 55 

retrospect — births, marriages, and so forth. Coleridge 
calls them " the poor man's only music." A village-spire 
in England peeping from its cluster of trees, is always 
associated in imagination with this cheerful accompani- 
ment, and may be expected to pour its joyous tidings on 
the gale. In Catholic countries, you are stunned with 
the everlasting tolling of bells to prayers or for the dead. 
In the Apennines, and other wild and mountainous 
districts of Italy, the little chapel-bell with its simple 
tinkling sound has a romantic and charming effect. The 
monks in former times appear to have taken a pride in 
the construction of bells as well as churches ; and some 
of those of the great cathedrals abroad (as at Cologne and 
Rouen) may be fairly said to be hoarse with counting the 
flight of ages. The chimes in Holland are a nuisance. 
They dance in the hours and the quarters. They leave 
no respite to the imagination. Before one set has done 
ringing in your ears, another begins. You do not know 
whether the hours move or stand still, go backwards or 
forwards, so fantastical and perplexing are their accom- 
paniments. Time is a more staid personage, and not so 
full of gambols. It puts you in mind of a tune with 
variations, or of an embroidered dress. Surely, nothing 
is more simple than time. His march is straightforward ; 
but we should have leisure allowed us to look back upon 
the distance we have come, and not be counting his steps 
every moment. Time in Holland is a foolish old fellow 
with all the antics of a youth, who " goes to church in 
a coranto, and lights his pipe in a cinque-pace." The 
chimes with us, on the contrary, as they come in every 
three or four hours, are like stages in the journey of the 
day. They give a fillip to the lazy, creeping hours, and 
relieve the lassitude of country-places. At noon, their 
desultory, trivial song is diffused through the hamlet with 
the odour of rashers of bacon ; at the close of day they 
send the toil-worn sleepers to their beds. Their dis- 



56 On a Sun-dial. 

continuance would be a great loss to the thinking or 
unthinking public. Mr. Wordsworth has painted their 
effect on the mind when he makes his friend Matthew, in 
a fit of inspired dotage, 

" Sing those witty rhymes 
About the crazy old church-clock 
And the bewilder'd chimes." 

The tolling of the bell for deaths and executions is a 
fearful summons, though, as it announces, not the advance 
of time but the approach of fate, it happily makes no part 
of our subject. Otherwise, the "sound of the bell" for 
Macheath's execution in the Beggars' Opera, or for that 
of the Conspirators in Venice Preserved, with the roll of 
the drum at a soldier's funeral, and a digression to that of 
my Uncle Toby, as it is so finely described by Sterne, 
would furnish ample topics to descant upon. If I were a 
moralist, I might disapprove the ringing in the new and 
ringing out the old year. 

" Why dance ye, mortals, o'er the grave of Time ?" 

St. Paul's bell tolls only for the death of our English 
kings, or a distinguished personage or two, with long 
intervals between. 1 

Those who have no artificial means of ascertaining the 
progress of time, are in general the most acute in dis- 
cerning its immediate signs, and are most retentive of 
individual dates. The mechanical aids to knowledge are 
not sharpeners of the wits. The understanding of a savage 
is a kind of natural almanac, and more true in its prognos- 
tication of the future. In his mind's eye he sees what 
has happened or what is likely to happen to him, " as in a 
map the voyager his course." Those who read the 
times and seasons in the aspect of the heavens and the 

1 Rousseau has admirably described the effect of bells on the 
imagination in a passage in the Confess ions, beginning " Le son des 
cloches rrCa toujours singulierement ajfecte" &c. 



On a Sun-dial. 57 

configuration of the stars, who count by moons and know 
when the sun rises and sets, are by no means ignorant of 
their own affairs or of the common concatenation of events. 
People in such situations have not their faculties distrac- 
ted by any multiplicity of inquiries beyond what befalls 
themselves, and the outward appearances that mark the 
change. There is, therefore, a simplicity and clearness in 
the knowledge they possess, which often puzzles the more 
learned. I am sometimes surprised at a shepherd-boy by 
the road-side, who sees nothing but the earth and sky, 
asking me the time of day — he ought to know so much 
better than any one how far the sun is above the horizon. 
I suppose he wants to ask a question of a passenger, or to 
see if he has a watch. Robinson Crusoe lost his reckon- 
ing in the monotony of his life and that bewildering dream 
of solitude, and was fain to have recourse to the notches 
in a piece of wood. What a diary was his ! And how 
time must have spread its circuit round him, vast and 
pathless as the ocean ! 

For myself, I have never had a watch nor any other 
mode of keeping time in my possession, nor ever wish to 
learn how time goes. It is a sign I have had little to do, 
few avocations, few engagements. When I am in a town, 
I can hear the clock; and when I am in the country, I 
can listen to the silence. What I like best is to lie whole 
mornings on a sunny bank on Salisbury Plain, without any 
object before me, neither knowing nor caring how time 
passes, and thus " with light-winged toys of feathered 
Idleness " to melt down hours to moments. Perhaps some 
such thoughts as I have here set down float before me like 
motes before my half-shut eyes, or some vivid image of 
the past by forcible contrast rushes by me — " Diana and 
her fawn, and all the glories of the antique world ; " then 
I start away to prevent the iron from entering my soul, 
and let fall some tears into that stream of time which 
separates me farther and farther from all I once loved ! 



58 On Prejudice. 

At length I rouse myself from my reverie, and home to 
dinner, proud of killing time with thought, nay even 
without thinking. Somewhat of this idle humour I inherit 
from my father, though he had not the same freedom from 
ennui, for he was not a metaphysician ; and there were 
stops and vacant intervals in his being which he did not 
know how to fill up. He used in these cases, and as an 
obvious resource, carefully to wind up his watch at night, 
and " with lack-lustre eye " more than once in the course 
of the day look to see what o'clock it was. Yet he had 
nothing else in his character in common with the elder 
Mr. Shandy. Were I to attempt a sketch of him, for my 
own or the reader's satisfaction, it would be after the 

following manner But now I recollect I have done 

something of the kind once before, 1 and were I to resume 
the subject here, some bat or owl of a critic, with specta- 
cled gravity, might swear I had stolen the whole of this 
Essay from myself — or (what is worse) from him ! So I 
had better let it go as it is. 



... 



On Prejudice. 

Prejudice, in its ordinary and literal sense, is 'prejudging 
any question without having sufficiently examined it, and 
adhering to our opinion upon it through ignorance, malice, 
or perversity, in spite of every evidence to the contrary. 
The little that we know has a strong alloy of misgiving 
and uncertainty in it; the mass of things of which we 
have no means of judging, but of which we form a blind 
and confident opinion, as if we were thoroughly acquainted 
with them, is monstrous. Prejudice is the child of ignor- 
ance : for as our actual knowledge falls short of our desire 
to know, or curiosity and interest in the world about us, 

1 In the Liberal, 1823; but see Memoirs of William Hazlitt, 
1867, i, SSetseq.— Ed. 






On Prejudice. 59 

so must we be tempted to decide upon a greater number of 
things at a venture ;. and having no check from reason or 
inquiry, we shall grow more obstinate and bigoted in our 
conclusions, according as we have been rash and presump- 
tuous. The absence of proof, instead of suspending our 
judgment, only gives us an opportunity of making things 
out according to our wishes and fancies ; mere ignorance 
is a blank canvas, on which we lay what colours we 
please, and paint objects black or white, as angels or 
devils, magnify or diminish them at our option ; and in 
the vacuum either of facts or arguments, the weight of pre- 
judice and passion falls with double force, and bears down 
everything before it. If we enlarge the circle of our pre- 
vious knowledge ever so little, we may meet with some- 
thing to create doubt and difficulty ; but as long as we 
remain confined to the cell of our native ignorance, while 
we know nothing beyond the routine of sense and custom, 
we shall refer everything to that standard, or make it out 
as we would have it to be, like spoiled children who have 
never been from home, and expect to find nothing in the 
world that does not accord with their wishes and notions. 
It is evident that the fewer things we know, the more 
ready we shall be to pronounce upon and condemn, what 
is new and strange us ; that is, the less capable we shall 
be of varying our conceptions, and the more prone to mis- 
take a part for the whole. What we do not understand 
the meaning of, must necessarily appear to us ridiculous 
and contemptible ; and we do not stop to inquire, till we 
have been taught by repeated experiments and warnings 
of our own fallibility, whether the absurdity is in our- 
selves, or in the object of our dislike and scorn. The 
most ignorant people are rude and insolent, as the most 
barbarous are cruel and ferocious. All our knowledge at 
first lying in a narrow compass (crowded by local and 
physical causes) whatever does not conform to this shocks 
us as out of reason and nature. The less we look abroad, 



60 On Prejudice. 

the more our ideas are introverted, and our habitual 
impressions, from being made up of a few particulars 
always repeated, grow together into a kind of concrete sub- 
stance, which will not bear taking to pieces, and where the 
smallest deviation destroys the whole feeling. Thus, the 
difference of colour in a black man was thought to forfeit 
his title to belong to the species, till books of voyages and 
travels, and old Fuller's quaint expression of " God's image 
carved in ebony," have brought the two ideas into a forced 
union, and men of colour are no longer to be libelled with 
impunity. The word republic has a harsh and incongruous 
sound to ears bred under a constitutional monarchy ; and 
we strove hard for many years to overturn the French 
republic, merely because we could not reconcile it to our- 
selves that such a thing should exist at all, notwithstand- 
ing the examples of Holland, Switzerland, and many others. 
This term has hardly yet performed quarantine : to the 
loyal and patriotic it has an ugly taint in it, and is 
scarcely fit to be mentioned in good company. If, how- 
ever, we are weaned by degrees from our prejudices against 
certain words that shock opinion, this is not the case with 
all : those that offend good manners grow more offensive 
with the progress of refinement and civilization, so that 
no writer now dares venture upon expressions that unwit- 
tingly disfigure the pages of our elder writers, and in this 
respect, instead of becoming callous or indifferent, we 
appear to become more fastidious every day. There is 
then a real grossness which does not depend on familiarity 
or custom. This account of the concrete nature of pre- 
judice, or of the manner in which our ideas by habit and 
the dearth of general information coalesce together into 
one indissoluble form, will show (what otherwise seems 
unaccountable) how such violent antipathies and ani- 
mosities have been occasioned by the most ridiculous or 
trifling differences of opinion, or outward symbols of it ; 
for by constant custom, and the want of reflection, the 



On Prejudice. 61 

most insignificant of these was as inseparably bound 
up with the main principle as the most important, and 
to give up any part was to give up the whole essence 
and vital interests of religion, morals, and government. 
Hence we see all sects and parties mutually insist 
on their own technical distinctions as the essentials 
and fundamentals of religion and politics, and, for the 
slightest variation in any of these, unceremoniously attack 
their opponents as atheists and blasphemers, traitors and 
incendiaries. 

In fact, these minor points are laid hold of in preference, 
as being more obvious and tangible, and as leaving more 
room for the exercise of prejudice and passion. Another 
thing that makes our prejudices rancorous and inveterate 
is, that as they are taken up without reason, they seem to 
be self-evident ; and we thence conclude, that they not 
only are so to ourselves, but must be so to others, so that 
their differing from us is wilful, hypocritical, and mali- 
cious. The Inquisition never pretended to punish its 
victims for being heretics or infidels, but for avowing 
opinions which with their eyes open they knew to be false. 
That is, the whole of the Catholic faith, " that one entire 
and perfect chrysolite," appeared to them so completely 
without flaw and blameless, that they could not conceive 
how any one else could imagine it to be otherwise, except 
from stubborness and contumacy, and would rather admit 
(to avoid so improbable a suggestion) that men went to 
the stake for an opinion, not which they held, but counter- 
feited, and were content to be burnt alive for the pleasure 
of playing the hypocrite. Nor is it wonderful that there 
should be so much repugnance to admit the existence of a 
serious doubt in matters of such vital and eternal interest, 
and on which the whole fabric of the church hinged, since 
the first doubt that was expressed on any single point drew 
all the rest after it ; and the first person who started a con- 
scientious scruple, and claimed the trial by reason, threw 



62 On Prejudice, 

down, as if by a magic spell, the strongholds of bigotry 
and superstition, and transferred the determination of the 
issue from the blind tribunal of prejudice and implicit 
faith to a totally different ground, the fair and open field 
of argument and inquiry. On this ground a single 
champion is a match for thousands. The decision of the 
majority is not here enough : unanimity is absolutely 
necessary to infallibility; for the only secure plea on 
which such a preposterous pretension could be set up, is 
by taking it for granted that there can be no possible 
doubt entertained upon the subject, and by diverting men's 
minds from ever asking themselves the question of the 
truth of certain dogmas and mysteries, any more than 
whether two and two make four. Prejudice, in short, is 
egotism : we see a part, and substitute it for the whole ; a 
thing strikes us casually and by halves, and we would 
have the universe stand proxy for our decision, in order 
to rivet it more firmly in our own belief; however 
insufficient or sinister the grounds of our opinions, we 
would persuade ourselves that they arise out of the 
strongest conviction, and are entitled to unqualified appro- 
bation ; slaves of our own prejudices, caprice, ignorance, 
we would be lords of the understandings and reason of 
others ; and (strange infatuation !) taking up an opinion 
solely from our own narrow and partial point of view, 
without consulting the feelings of others, or the reason of 
things, we are still uneasy if all the world do not come 
into our way of thinking. 

The most dangerous enemies to established opinions 
are those who, by always defending them, call attention to 
their weak sides. The priests and politicians, in former 
times, were therefore wise in preventing the first ap- 
proaches of innovation and inquiry ; in preserving in- 
violate the smallest link in the adamantine chain with 
which they had bound the souls and bodies of men ; in 
closing up every avenue or pore through which a doubt 



On Prejudice. 63 

could creep in, for they knew that through the slightest 
crevice floods of irreligion and heresy would rush like a 
tide. Hence the constant alarm at free discussion and 
inquiry : hence the clamour against innovation and reform : 
hence our dread and detestation of those who differ with 
us in opinion, for this at once puts us on the necessity of 
defending ourselves, or of owning ourselves weak or in the 
wrong, if we cannot ; and converts that which was before 
a bed of roses, while we slept undisturbed upon it, into a 
cushion of thorns ; and hence our natural tenaciousness of 
those points which are most vulnerable, and of which we 
have no proof to offer ; for as reason fails us, we are more 
annoyed by the objections, and require to be soothed and 
supported by the concurrence of others. Bigotry and 
intolerance, which pass as synonymous, are, if rightly con- 
sidered, a contradiction in terms ; for if, in drawing up the 
articles of our creed, we are blindly bigoted to our 
impressions and views, utterly disregarding all others, 
why should we afterwards be so haunted and disturbed by 
the last, as to wish to exterminate every difference of 
sentiment with fire and sword ? The difficulty is only 
solved by considering that unequal compound, the human 
mind, alternately swayed by individual bi asses and abstract 
pretensions, and where reason so often panders to, or is 
made the puppet of the will. To show at once the danger 
and extent of prejudice, it may be sufficient to observe 
that all our convictions, however arrived at, and whether 
founded on strict demonstration or the merest delusion, 
are crusted over with the same varnish of confidence and 
conceit, and afford the same firm footing both to our 
theories and practice ; or if there be any difference, we are 
in general " most ignorant of what we are most assured,'* 
the strength of will and impatience of contradiction making 
up for the want of evidence. Mr. Burke says that we 
ought to " cherish our prejudices, because they are pre- 
judices ;" but this view of the case will satisfy the demands 



64 On Prejudice. 

of neither party, for prejudice is never easy unless it can 
pass itself off for reason, or abstract undeniable truth ; and 
again, in the eye of reason, if all prejudices are to be 
equally regarded as such, then the prejudices of others are 
right, and ours must in their turn be wrong. The great 
stumbling block to candour and liberality is the difficulty 
of being fully possessed of the excellence of any opinion 
or pursuits of our own, without proportionally condemning 
whatever is opposed to it, nor can we admit the possibility 
that when our side of the shield is black, the other should 
be white. The largest part of our judgments is prompted 
by habit and passion ; but because habit is like a second 
nature, and we necessarily approve what passion suggests, 
we will have it that they are founded entirely on reason 
and nature, and that all the world must be of the same 
opinion, unless they wilfully shut their eyes to the truth. 
Animals are free from prejudice, because they have no 
notion or care about anything beyond themselves, and 
have no wish to generalise or talk big on what does not 
concern them : man alone falls into absurdity and error 
by setting up a claim to superior wisdom and virtue, and 
to be a dictator and lawgiver to all around him, and on all 
things that he has the remotest conception of. If mere 
prejudice were dumb as well as deaf and blind, it would 
not so much signify ; but as it is, each sect, age, country, 
profession, individual, is ready to prove that they are 
exclusively in the right, and to go together by the ears 
for it. 6< Kings the earth with the vain stir." It is the 
trick for each party to raise an outcry against prejudice; 
as by -this they natter themselves, and would have it 
supposed by others, that they are perfectly free from it, 
and have all the reason on their own side. It is easy 
indeed to call names, or to separate the word prejudice 
from the word reason ; but not so easy to separate the 
two things. Eeason seems a very positive and palpable 
thing to those who have no notion of it, but as expressing 



dn Prejudice. 65 

their own views and feelings ; as prejudice is evidently a 
very gross and shocking absurdity (that no one can fall 
into who wishes to avoid it), as long as we continue to 
apply this term to the prejudices of other people. To 
suppose that we cannot make a mistake is the very way to 
run headlong into it ; for if the distinction were so broad 
and glaring as our self-conceit and dogmatism lead us to 
imagine it is, we could never, but by design, mistake truth 
for falsehood. Those, however, who think they can make 
a clear stage of it, and frame a set of opinions on all sub- 
jects by an appeal to reason alone, and without the smallest 
intermixture of custom, imagination or passion, know just 
as little of themselves as they do of human nature. The 
best way to prevent our running into the wildest excesses 
of prejudice and the most dangerous aberrations from 
reason, is, not to represent the two things as having a 
great gulf between them, which it is inrpossible to pass 
without a violent effort, but to show that we are constantly 
(even when we think ourselves most secure) treading on 
the brink of a precipice ; that custom, passion, imagination, 
insinuate themselves into and influence almost every judg- 
ment we pass or sentiment we indulge, and are a necessary 
help (as well as hindrance) to the human understand- 
ing ; and that to attempt to refer every question to abstract 
truth and precise definition, without allowing for the frailty 
of prejudice, which is the unavoidable consequence of the 
frailty and imperfection of reason, would be to unravel the 
whole web and texture of human understanding and society. 
Such daring anatomists of morals and philosophy think 
that the whole beauty of the mind consists in the skeleton ; 
cut away, without remorse, all sentiment, fancy, taste, as 
superfluous excrescences ; and in their own eager, unfeel- 
ing pursuit of scientific truth and elementary principles, 
they " murder to dissect." 

It is a mistake, however, to suppose that all prejudices 
are false, though it is not an easy matter to distinguish 

F 



66 On Prejudice, 

between true and false prejudice. Prejudice is properly 

an opinion or feeling, not for which there is no reason, 

but of which we cannot render a satisfactory account on 

the spot. It is no't always possible to assign a " reason 

for the faith that is in us," not even if we take time and 

summon up all our strength ; but it does not therefore 

follow that our faith is hollow and unfounded. A false 

impression may be denned to be an effect without a cause, 

or without any adequate one ; but the effect may remain 

and be true, though the cause is concealed or forgotten. 

The grounds of our opinions and tastes may be deep, and 

be scattered over a large surface ; they may be various, 

remote and complicated ; but the result will be sound and 

true, if they have existed at all, though we may not be 

able to analyse them into classes, or to recall the particular 

time, place, and circumstances of each individual case or 

branch of the evidence. The materials of thought and 

feeling, the body of facts and experience, are infinite, are 

constantly going on around us, and acting to produce an 

impression of good or evil, of assent or dissent to certain 

inferences ; but to require that we should be prepared to 

retain the whole of this mass of experience in our memory, 

to resolve it into its component parts, and be able to quote 

chapter and verse for every conclusion we unavoidably 

draw from it, or else to discard the whole together as 

unworthy the attention of a rational being, is to betray an 

utter ignorance both of the limits and the several uses of 

the human capacity. The feeling of the truth of anything, 

or the soundness of the judgment formed upon it from 

repeated, actual impressions, is one thing ; the power of 

vindicating and enforcing it, by distinctly appealing to or 

explaining those impressions, is another. The most fluent 

talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the 

justest thinkers. 

To deny that we can, in a certain sense, know and be 
justified in believing anything of which we cannot give 



On Prejudice. 67 

the complete demonstration, or the exact why and how, 
would only be to deny that the clown, the mechanic (and 
not even the greatest philosopher), can know the com- 
monest thing ; for in this new and dogmatical process of 
reasoning, the greatest philosopher can trace nothing above, 
nor proceed a single step without taking something for 
granted; 1 and it is well if he does not take more things 
for granted than the most vulgar and illiterate, and what 
he knows a great deal less about. A common mechanic 
can tell how to work an engine better than the mathema- 
tician who invented it. A peasant is able to foretell rain 
from the appearance of the clouds, because (time out of 
mind) he has seen that appearance followed by that con- 
sequence ; and shall a pedant catechise him out of a 
conviction which he has found true in innumerable in- 
stances, because he does not understand the composition 
of the elements, or cannot put his notions into a logical 
shape ? There may also be some collateral circumstance 
(as the time of day), as well as the appearance of the 
clouds, which he may forget to state in accounting for his 
prediction ; though, as it has been a part of his familiar 
experience, it has naturally guided him in forming it, 
whether he was aware of it or not. This comes under the 
head of the well-known principle of the association of ideas ; 
by which certain impressions, from frequent recurrence, 
coalesce and act in unison truly and mechanically — that 
is, without our being conscious of anything but the general 
and settled result. On this principle it has been well 

1 Berkeley, in his Minute Philosopher, attacks Dr. Halley, who 
had objected to faith and mysteries in religion, on this score ; and 
contends that the mathematician, no less than the theologian, is 
obliged to presume on certain postulates, or to resort, before he 
could establish a single theorem, to a formal definition of those 
undeflnable and hypothetical existences, points, lines, and surfaces ; 
and, according to the ingenious and learned Bishop of Cloyne, 
solids would fare no better than superfieials in this war of words and 
captious contradiction. 



68 On Prejudice. 

said, that " there is nothing so true as habit ;" but it is 
also blind : we feel and can produce a given effect from 
numberless repetitions of the same cause ; but we neither 
inquire into the cause, nor advert to the mode. In learn- 
ing any art or exercise, we are obliged to take lessons, to 
watch others, to proceed step by step, to attend to the 
details and means employed ; but when we are masters of 
it, we take all this for granted, and do it without labour 
and without thought, by a kind of habitual instinct — that 
is, by the trains of our ideas and volitions having been 
directed uniformly, and at last flowing of themselves into 
the proper channel. 

We never do anything well till we cease to think about 
the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so 
difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly 
or idiomatically. They do not succeed in this from 
knowledge or reflection, but from inveterate custom, 
which is a cord that cannot be loosed. In fact, in all 
that we do, feel, or think, there is a leaven of prejudice 
fmore or less extensive), viz. something implied, of which 
we do not know or have forgotten the grounds. 

If I am required to prove the possibility, or demon- 
strate the mode of whatever I do before I attempt it, I 
can neither speak, walk, nor see ; nor have the use . of my 
hands senses, or common understanding. I do not know 
what muscles I use in walking, nor what organs I employ 
in speech : those who do, cannot speak or walk better on 
that account ; nor can they tell how these organs and 
muscles themselves act. Can I not discover that one 
object is near, and another at a distance, from the eye 
alone, or from continual impressions of sense and custom 
concurring to make the distinction, without going through 
a course of perspective and optics ? — or am I not to be 
allowed an opinion on the subject, or to act upon it, 
without being accused of being a very prejudiced and 
obstinate person? An artist knows that, to imitate an 



On Prejudice. 69- 

object in the horizon, he must use less colour ; and the 
naturalist knows that this effect is produced by the inter- 
vention of a greater quantity of air : but a country fellow, 
who knows nothing of either circumstance, must not only 
be ignorant but a blockhead, if he could be persuaded that 
a hill ten miles off was close before him, only because he 
could not state the grounds of his opinion scientifically. 
Not only must we (if restricted to reason and philosophy) 
distrust the notices of sense, but we must also dismiss all 
that mass of knowledge and perception which falls under 
the head of common sense and natural feeling, which is 
made up of the strong and urgent, but undefined impres- 
sions of things upon us, and lies between the two extremes 
of absolute proof and the grossest ignorance. Many of 
these pass for instinctive principles and innate ideas ; but 
there is nothing in them " more than natural." 

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not 
be able to find my way across the room ; nor know how to 
conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in 
any relation of life. Keason may play the critic, and 
correct certain errors afterwards ; but if we were to wait 
for its formal and absolute decisions in the shifting and 
multifarious combinations of human affairs, the world 
would stand still. Even men of science, after they have 
gone over the proofs a number of times, abridge the 
process, and jump at a conclusion : is it therefore false, 
because they have always found it to be true? Science 
after a certain time becomes presumption ; and learning 
reposes in ignorance. It has been observed, that women 
have more tact and insight into character than men, that 
they find out a pedant, a pretender, a blockhead, sooner. 
The explanation is, that they trust more to the first 
impressions and natural indications of things, without 
troubling themselves with a learned theory of them ; 
whereas men, affecting greater gravity, and thinking 
themselves bound to justify their c*inions 3 are afraid to 



70 On Prejudice. 

form any judgment at all, without the formality of proofs 
and definitions, and blunt the edge of their understand- 
ings, lest they should commit some mistake. They stay 
for facts, till it is too late to pronounce on the characters. 
Women are naturally physiognomists, and men phrenolo- 
gists. The first judge by sensations ; the last by rules. 
Prejudice is so far then an involuntary and stubborn 
association of ideas, of which we cannot assign the distinct 
grounds and origin; and the answer to the question, 
" How do we know whether the prejudice is true or false ?" 
depends chiefly on that other, whether the first connection 
between our ideas has been real or imaginary. This 
again resolves into the inquiry — Whether the subject in 
dispute falls under the province of our own experience, 
feeling, and observation, or is referable to the head of 
authority, tradition, and fanciful conjecture? Our prac- 
tical conclusions are in this respect generally right ; our 
speculative opinions are just as likely to be wrong. What 
we derive from our personal acquaintance with things 
(however narrow in its scope or imperfectly digested), is, 
for the most part, built on a solid foundation— that of 
Nature ; it is in trusting to others (who give themselves 
out for guides and doctors) that we are all abroad, and at 
the mercy of quackery, impudence, and imposture. Any 
impression, however absurd, or however we may have 
imbibed it, by being repeated and indulged in, becomes an 
article of implicit and incorrigible belief. The point to 
consider is, how we have first taken it up, whether from 
ourselves or the arbitrary dictation of others. " Thus 
shall we try the doctrines, whether they be of nature or 
of man." 

So far then from the charge lying against vulgar and 
illiterate prejudice as the bane of truth and common sense, 
the argument turns the other way; for the greatest, the 
most solemn, and mischievous absurdities that mankind 
have been the dupes of. they have imbibed from the 



On Prejudice. 71 

dogmatism and vanity or hypocrisy of the self-styled wise 
and learned, who have imposed profitable fictions upon 
them for self-evident truths, and contrived to enlarge 
their power with their pretensions to knowledge. Every 
boor sees that the sun shines above his head ; that " the 
moon is made of green cheese," is a fable that has been 
taught him. Defoe says, that there were a hundred 
thousand stout country-fellows in his time ready to fight 
to the death against popery, without knowing whether 
popery was a man or a horse. This, then, was a preju- 
dice that they did not fill up of their own heads. All the 
great points that men have founded a claim to superiority, 
wisdom, and illumination upon, that they have embroiled 
the world with, and made matters of the last importance, 
are what one age and country differ diametrically with 
each other about, have been successively and justly 
exploded, and have been the levers of opinion and the 
grounds of contention, precisely because, as their ex- 
pounders and believers are equally in the dark about 
them, they rest wholly on the fluctuations of will and 
passion, and as they can neither be proved nor disproved, 
admit of the fiercest opposition or the most bigoted faith. 
In what " comes home to the business and bosoms of 
men," there is less of this uncertainty and presumption ; 
and there, in the little world of our own knowledge and 
experience, we can hardly do better than attend to the 
" still, small voice " of our own hearts and feelings, 
instead of being browbeat by the effrontery, or puzzled 
by the sneers and cavils of pedants and sophists, of 
whatever school or description. 

If I take a prejudice against a person from his face, I 
shall very probably be in the right ; if I take a prejudice 
against a person from hearsay, I shall quite as probably 
be in the wrong. We have a prejudice in favour of 
certain books, but it is hardly without knowledge, if we 
have read them with delight over and over again. Fame 



72 On Prejudice. 

itself is a prejudice, though a fine one. Natural affection 
is a prejudice : for though we have cause to love our 
nearest connections better than others, we have no reason 
to think them better than others. The error here is, 
when that which is properly a dictate of the heart passes 
out of its sphere, and becomes an overweening decision of 
the understanding. So in like manner of the love of 
country; and there is a prejudice in favour of virtue, 
genius, liberty, which (though it w r ere possible) it would 
be a pity to destroy. The passions, such as avarice, 
ambition, love, &c, are prejudices, that is amply ex- 
aggerated views of certain objects, made up of habit v and 
imagination beyond their real value ; but if we ask what 
is the real value of any object, independently of its 
connection with the power of habit, or its affording 
natural scope for the imagination, we shall perhaps be 
puzzled for an answer. To reduce things to the scale of 
abstract reason would be to annihilate our interest in 
them, instead of raising our affections to a higher 
standard; and by striving to make man rational, we 
should leave him merely brutish. 

Animals are without prejudice : they are not led away 
by authority or custom, but it is because they are gross, 
and incapable of being taught. It is, however, a mistake 
to imagine that only the vulgar and ignorant, who can 
give no account of their opinions, are the slaves of 
bigotry and prejudice ; the noisiest declaimers, the most 
subtle casuists, and most irrefragable doctors, are as far 
•removed from the character of true philosophers, while 
they strain and pervert all their powers to prove some 
unintelligible dogma, instilled into their minds by early 
education, interest, or self-importance ; and if we say the 
peasant or artisan is a Mahometan because he is born in 
Turkey, or a papist because he is born in Italy, the mufti 
at Constantinople or the cardinal at Borne is so, for no 
better reason, in the midst of all his pride and learning. 



Self-love and Benevolence. 73 

Mr. Hobbes used to say, that if lie had read as much as 
others, he should have been a^s ignorant as they. 

After all, most of our opinions are a mixture of reason 
and prejudice, experience and authority. We can only 
judge for ourselves in what concerns ourselves, and in 
things about us : and even there we must trust con- 
tinually to established opinion and current report ; in 
higher and more abstruse points we must pin our faith 
still more on others. If we believe only what we know at 
first hand, without trusting to authority at all, we shall 
disbelieve a great many things that really exist ; and the 
suspicious coxcomb is as void of judgment as the cre- 
dulous fool. My htf.Mtual conviction of the existence of 
such a place as Eome is not strengthened by my having 
seen it ; it might be almost said to be obscured and 
weakened, as the reality falls short of the imagination. I 
walk along the streets without fearing that the houses 
will fall on my head, though I have not examined their 
foundation ; and I believe firmly in the Newtonian 
system, though I have never read the Principia. In the 
former case, I argue that if the houses were inclined to 
fall they would not wait for me ; and in the latter, I 
acquiesce in what all who have studied the subject, and 
are capable of understanding it, agree in, having no reason 
to suspect the contrary. That the earth turns round is 
agreeable to my understanding, though it shocks my 
sense, which is however too weak to grapple with so vast 
a question. 

Self-love and Benevolence. 

A DIALOGUE. 1 

A. For my part, I think Helvetius has made it clear 
that self-love is at the bottom of all our actions, even 

1 I clo not think that any exact account has been given of the 
history and date of this paper. But it seems probable that it was? 



74 Self-love and Benevolence. 

of those which are apparently he most generous and 
disinterested. 

B. I do not know what yon mean by saying that 
Helvetins has made this clear, nor what you mean by self- 
love. 

A. Why, was not he the fm t who explained to the 
world that in gratifying others, we gratify ourselves ; that 
though the result may be different, the motive is really 
the same, and a selfish one ; and that if we had not more 
pleasure in performing what are called friendly or vir- 
tuous actions than the contrary, they would never enter 
our thoughts? 

B. Certainly he is no more entitled to this discovery 
(if it be one) than you are. Hobbes and Mandeville long 
before him asserted the same thing in the most explicit 
and unequivocal manner ; 1 and Butler, in the Notes and 
Preface to his Sermons, had also long before answered it 
in the most satisfactory way. 

A. Ay, indeed ! pray how so ? 

B. By giving the common-sense answer to the question 
which I have just asked of you. 

A. And what is that ? I do not exactly comprehend. 

B. Why, that self-love means, both in common and 
philosophical speech, the love of self. 



like the two preceding, written in Italy in 1825, and represents a 
conversation between the author (A ?), Landor (B ?), and Captain 
Medwin {Captain C?). Compare the paper on Self-love in the 
Literary Remains, 1836, ii. — Ed. 

1 "II a manque' au plus grand philosophe qu'aient eu les 
Francais, de vivre dans quelque solitude des Alpes, dans quelque 
sejour eloigne', et de lancer dela son livre dans Paris sans y venir 
jamais lui-meme. Rousseau avait trop de sensibilite et trop peu de 
raison, Buffo n trop d'hypocrisie a son jardin des plantes, Voltaire 
trop d'enfantillage dans la tete, pour pouvoir juger le principe 
d'Helvetius."— De V Amour, torn. 2, p. 230. 

My friend Mr. Beyle here lays too much stress on a borrowed 
verbal fallacy. 



Self-love and Benevolence. 75 

A. To be sure, there needs no ghost to tell us that. 

B. And yet, simple as it is, both you and many great 
philosophers seem to have overlooked it. 

A. You are pleased to be obscure— unriddle for the 
sake of the vulgar. 

B. Well then, Bishop Butler's statement in the volume 
I have mentioned 

A. May I ask, is it the author of the Analogy you 
speak of? 

B. The same, but an entirely different and much more 
valuable work. His position is, that the arguments of 
the opposite party go to prove that in all our motives 
and actions it is the individual indeed who loves or is 
interested in something, but not in the smallest degree 
(which yet seems necessary to make out the full import of 
the compound " sound significant," self-love) that that 
something is himself. By self-love is surely implied not 
only that it is I who feel a certain passion, desire, good- 
will, and so forth, but that I feel this good-will towards 
myself — in other words, that I am both the person feeling 
the attachment, and the object of it. In short, the con- 
troversy between self-love and benevolence relates not to 
the person who loves, but to the person beloved— other- 
wise, it is fiat and puerile nonsense. There must always 
be some one to feel the love, that's certain, or else there 
could be no love of one thing or another — so far there can 
be no question that it is a given individual who feels, 
thinks, and acts, in all possible cases of feeling, thinking, 
and acting — " there needs," according to your own 
allusion, " no ghost come from the grave to tell us that " 
— but whether the said individual in so doing always 
thinks of feels for, and acts with a view to himself, that is 
a very important question, and the only real one at issue ; 
and the very statement of \\hich, in a distinct and intelli- 
gible form, gives at once the proper and inevitable answer 
to it. Self-love, to mean anything, must have a double 



76 Self-love and Benevolence. 

meaning, that is, must not merely signify love, but love 
defined and directed in a particular manner, having self 
for its object, reflecting and reacting upon self; but it is 
downright and intolerable trifling to persist that the love 
or concern which we feel for another still has self for its 
object, because it is we who feel it. The same sort of 
quibbling would lead to the conclusion that when I am 
thinking of any other person, I am notwithstanding 
thinking of myself, because it is I who have his image in 
my mind. 

A. I cannot, I confess, see the connection. 

B. I wish you would point out the distinction. Or let 
me ask you — Suppose you were to observe me looking 
frequently and earnestly at myself in the glass, would you 
not be inclined to laugh, and say that this was vanity? 

A. I might be half-tempted to do so. 

B. Well; and if you were to find me admiring a fine 
picture, or speaking in terms of high praise of the person 
or qualities of another, would you not set it down equally 
to an excess of coxcombry and self-conceit ? 

A. How, in the name of common sense, should I do so? 

B. Nay, how should you do otherwise upon your own 
principles ? For if sympathy with another is to be 
construed into self-love because it is I who feel it, surely, 
by the same rule, my admiration and praise of another 
must be resolved into self-praise and self-admiration, and 
I am the whole time delighted with myself, to wit, with 
my own thoughts and feelings, while I pretend to be 
delighted with another. Another's limbs are as much 
mine, who contemplate them, as his feelings. 

A. Now, my good friend, you go too far : I can't think 
you serious. 

B. Do I not tell you that I have a most grave Bishop 
(equal to a whole Bench) on my side ? 

A. What! is this illustration of the looking-glass and pic- 
ture his ? I thought it was in your own far-fetched manner. 



Self-love and Benevolence. 11 

B. And why far-fetched ? 

A. Because nobody can think of calling the praise of 
another self-conceit — the words have a different meaning 
in the language. 

B. Nobody has thought of confounding them hitherto, 
and yet they sound to me as like as selfishness and 
generosity. If our vanity can be brought to admire others 
disinterestedly, I do not see but our good-nature may be 
taught to serve them as disinterestedly. Grant me but 
this, that self-love signifies not simply, "I love," but 
requires to have this further addition, "I love myself," 
understood in order to make sense or grammar of it ; and 
I defy you to make one or the other of Helvetius's theory, 
if you will needs have it to be his. If, as Fielding says, 
all our passions are selfish merely because they are ours, 
then in hating another we must be said to hate ourselves, 
just as wisely as in loving another, we are said to be 
actuated by self-love. I have no patience with such 
foolery. I respect that fine old sturdy fellow Hobbes, or 
even the acute, pertinacious sophistry of Mandeville; but 
I do not like the flimsy, self-satisfied repetition of an 
absurdity, which with its originality has lost all its 
piquancy. 

B. You have, I know, very little patience with others 
who differ from you, nor are you a very literal reporter of 
the arguments of those who happen to be on your side of 
the question. You were about to tell me the substance of 
Butler's answer to Helvetius's theory, if we can let the 
anachronism pass ; and I have as yet only heard certain 
quaint and verbal distinctions of your own. I must still 
think that the most disinterested actions proceed from a 
selfish motive. A man feels distress at the sight of a 
beggar, and he parts with his money to remove this 
uneasiness. If he did not feel this distress in his own 
mind, he would take no steps to relieve the other's wants. 

B. And pray, does he feel this distress in his own 



78 Self-love and Benevolence. 



ave 



mind out of love to himself, or solely that he may hav 
the pleasure of getting rid of it? The first move in the 
game of mutual obligation is evidently a social, not a 
selfish impulse ; and I might rest the dispute here and 
insist upon going no farther till 'this step is got over, but 
it is not necessary. I have already told you the substance 
of Butler's answer to this commonplace and plausible 
objection. He says, in his fine broad, manly and yet 
unpretending mode of stating a question, that a living 
being may be supposed to be actuated either by mere 
sensations, having no reference to any one else, or else 
that having an idea and foresight of the consequences to 
others, he is influenced by and interested in those con- 
sequences only in so far as they have a distinct connection 
with his own ultimate good, in both which cases, seeing 
that the motives and actions have both their origin and 
end in self, they may and must be properly denominated 
selfish. But where the motive is neither physically nor 
morally selfish, that is, where the impulse to act is 
neither excited by a physical sensation nor by a reflection 
on the consequence to accrue to the individual, it must 
be hard to say in what sense it can be called so, except in 
that sense already exploded, namely, that which would 
infer that an impulse of any kind is selfish merely 
because it acts upon some one, or that before we can 
entertain disinterested sympathy with another, we must 
feel no sympathy at all. Benevolence, generosity, com- 
passion, friendship, &c, imply, says the Bishop, that we 
take an immediate and unfeigned interest in the welfare 
of others ; that their pleasures give us pleasure ; that 
their pains give us pain, barely to know of them, and from 
no thought about ourselves. But no ! retort the advocates 
of self-love, this is not enough : before any person can 
pretend to the title of benevolent, generous, and so on, he 
must prove, that so far from taking the deepest and most 
heartfelt interest in the happiness of others, he has no 






Self-love and Benevolence, 79 

feeling on the subject, that he is perfectly indifferent to 
their weal or woe ; and then taking infinite pains and 
making unaccountable sacrifices for their good without 
caring one farthing about them, he might pass for herioc 
and disinterested. But if he lets it appear he has the 
smallest good-will towards them, and acts upon it, he then 
becomes a merely selfish agent ; so that to establish a 
character for generosity, compassion, humanity, &c, in 
any of his actions, he must first plainly prove that he 
never felt the slightest twinge of any of these passions 
thrilling in his bosom. This, according to my author, is 
requiring men to act not from charitable motives, but 
from no motives at all. Such reasoning has not an 
appearance of philosophy, but rather of drivelling weak- 
ness or of tacit irony. For my part, I can conceive of no 
higher strain of generosity than that which justly and 
truly says, Nihil humani a me cdienum puto — but, according 
to your modern French friends and my old English ones, 
there is no difference between this and the most sordid 
selfishness ; for the instant a man takes an interest in 
another's welfare, he makes it his own, and all the merit 
and disinterestedness is gone. " Greater love than this 
hath no man, that he should give his life for his friend." 
It must be rather a fanciful sort of self-love that at any 
time sacrifices its own acknowledged and obvious interests 
for the sake of another. 

A. Not in the least. The expression you have just 
used explains the whole mystery, and I think you must 
allow this yourself. The moment I sympathise with 
another, I do in strictness make his interest my own. 
The two things on this supposition become inseparable, 
and my gratification is identified with his advantage. 
Every one, in short, consults his particular taste and 
inclination, whatever may be its bias, or acts from the 
strongest motive. Eegulus, as Helvetius has so ably 
demonstrated, would not have returned to Carthage, but 



80 Self-love and Benevolence. 

that the idea of dishonour gave him more uneasiness than 
the apprehension of a violent death. 

B. That is, had he not preferred the honour of his 
country to his own interest. Surely, when self-love by 
all accounts takes so very wide a range and embraces 
entirely new objects, of a character so utterly opposed 
to its general circumscribed and paltry routine of action, 
it would be as well to designate it by some new and 
appropriate appellation, unless it were meant, by the 
intervention of the old and ambiguous term, to confound 
the important practical distinction which subsists between 
the puny circle of a man's physical sensations and private 
interests and the whole world of virtue and honour, and 
thus to bring back the last gradually and disingenuously 
within the verge of the former. Things without names 
are unapt to take root in the human mind : we are prone 
to reduce nature to the dimensions of language. If a 
feeling of a refined and romantic character is expressed 
by a gross and vulgar name, our habitual associations will 
be sure to degrade the first to the level of the last, instead 
of conforming to a forced and technical definition. But 
I beg to deny, not only that the objects in this case are 
the same, but that the principle is similar. 

A. Do you then seriously pretend that the end of 
sympathy is not to get rid of the momentary uneasiness 
occasioned by the distress of another ? 

B. And has that uneasiness, I again ask, its source 
in self-love? If self-love were the only principle of 
action, we ought to receive no uneasiness from the pains 
of others, we ought to be wholly exempt from any such 
weakness : or the least that can be required to give the 
smallest shadow of excuse to this exclusive theory is, 
that the instant the pain was communicated by our 
foolish, indiscreet sympathy, we should think of nothing 
but getting rid of it as fast as possible, by fair means 
or foul, as a mechanical instinct. If the pain of sympathy, 



Self-love and Benevolence. 81 

as soon as it arose, was decompounded from the objects 
which gave it birth, and acted upon the brain or nerves 
solely as a detached, desultory feeling, or abstracted sense 
of uneasiness, from which the mind shrunk with its 
natural aversion to pain, then I would allow that the 
impulse in this case, having no reference to the good 
of another, and seeking only to remove a present incon- 
venience from the individual, would still be properly 
self-love : but no such process of abstraction takes place. 
The feeling of compassion as it first enters the mind, 
so it continues to act upon it in conjunction with the 
idea of what another suffers ; refers every wish it forms, 
or every effort it makes, to the removal of pain from a 
fellow-creature, and is only satisfied when it believes this 
end to be accomplished. It is not a blind, physical re- 
pugnance to pain, as affecting ourselves, but a rational or 
intelligible conception of it as existing out of ourselves, 
that prompts and sustains our exertions in behalf of 
humanity. Nor can it be otherwise, while man is the 
creature of imagination and reason, and has faculties that 
implicate him (whether he will or not) in the pleasures 
and pains of others, and bind up his fate with theirs. 
Why, then, when an action or feeling is neither in its 
commencement nor progress, nor ultimate objects, dictated 
by or subject to the control of self-love, bestow the name 
where everything but the name is wanting ? 

A. I must give you fair warning, that in this last tirade 
you have more than once gone beyond my comprehension. 
Your distinctions are too fine-drawn, and there is a want 
of relief in the expression. Are you not getting back 
to what you describe as your first manner ? Your present 
style is more amusing. See if you cannot throw a few 
high lights into that last argument ! 

B. Tin peu plus a VAnglaise — anything to oblige ! I 
say, then, it appears to me strange that self-love should 
be asserted by any impartial reasoner (not the dupe of a 

G 



82 Self -love and Benevolence. 

play upon words), to be absolute and undisputed master 
of tbe human mind, when compassion or uneasiness on 
account of others enters it without leave and in spite 
of this principle. What ! to be instantly expelled by it 
without mercy, so that it may still assert its pre-eminence? 
No ; but to linger there, to hold consultation with another 
principle, Imagination, which owes no allegiance to self- 
interest, and to march out only under condition and 
guarantee that the welfare of another is first provided for 
without any special clause in its own favour. This is 
much as if you were to say and swear, that though the 
bailiff and his man have taken possession of your house, 
you are still the rightful owner of it. 

A. And so I am. 

B. Why, then, not turn out such unwelcome intruders 
without standing upon ceremony ? 

A. You were too vague and abstracted before : now 
you are growing too figurative. Always in extremes. 

B. Give me leave for a moment, as you will not let nle 
spin mere metaphysical cobwebs. 

A. I am patient. 

B. Suppose that by sudden transformation your body 
were so contrived that it could feel the actual sensations 
of another body, as if your nerves had an immediate and 
physical communication ; that you were assailed by a 
number of objects you saw and knew nothing of before, 
and felt desires and appetites springing up in your bosom 
for which you could not at all account — would you not 
say that this addition of another body made a material 
alteration in your former situation ; that it called for 
a new set of precautions and instincts to provide for 
its wants and wishes? or would you persist in it that 
you were just where you were, that no change had taken 
place in your being and interests, and that your new body 
was in fact your old one, for no other reason than because 
it was yours ? To my thinking the case would be quite 



Self-love and Benevolence. 83 

altered by the supererogation of such a new sympathetic 
body, and I should be for dividing my care and time 
pretty equally between them. 

Captain G. You mean that in that case you would have 
taken in partners to the concern, as well as No. I. ? 

B. Yes ; and my concern for No. II. would be some- 
thing very distinct from, and quite independent of, my 
original and hitherto exclusive concern for No. I. 

A. How very gross and vulgar ! (whispering to D , 

and then turning to me, added) — but why suppose an 
impossibility? I hate all such incongruous and far- 
fetched illustrations. 

B. And yet this very miracle takes place every day in 
the human mind and heart, and you and your sophists 
would persuade us that it is nothing, and would slur over 
its existence by a shallow misnomer. Do I not by 
imaginary sympathy acquire a new interest (out of myself) 
in others, as much as I should on the former supposition 
by physical contact or animal magnetism? and am I 
not compelled by this new law of my nature (neither 
included in physical sensation nor a deliberate regard 
to my own individual welfare) to consult the feelings and 
wishes of the new social body of which I am become 
a member, often to the prejudice of my own ? The 
parallel seems to me exact, and I think the inference from 
it unavoidable. I do not postpone a benevolent or 
friendly purpose to my own personal convenience or 
make it bend to it — 

"Letting I dare not wait upon I would, 
Like the poor cat f the adage." 

The will is amenable, not to our immediate sensibility, 
but to reason and imagination, which point out and 
enforce a line of duty very different from that prescribed 
by self-love. The operation of sympathy or social feeling, 
though it has its seat certainly in the mind of the in- 



84 Self-love and Benevolence. 

dividual, is neither for his immediate behalf nor to his 
remote benefit, but is constantly a diversion from both, 
and therefore, I contend, is not in any sense selfish. 
The movements in my breast as much originate in, and 
are regulated by, the idea of what another feels, as if they 
were governed by a chord placed there vibrating to 
another's pain. If these movements were mechanical, 
they would be considered as directed to the good of 
another* it is odd, that because my bosom takes part 
and beats in unison with them, they should become of 
a less generous character. In the passions of hatred, 
resentment, sullenness, or even in low spirits, we volun- 
tarily go through a great deal of pain, because such is our 
'pleasure ; or strictly, because certain objects have taken 
hold of our imagination, and we cannot, or will not, get 
rid of the impression : why should good-nature and 
generosity be the only feelings in which we will not allow 
a little forgetfulness of ourselves ? Once more. If self- 
love, or each individual's sensibility, sympathy, what you 
will, were like an animalcule, sensitive, quick, shrinking 
instantly from whatever gave it pain, seeking instinctively 
whatever gave it pleasure, and having no other obligation 
or law of its existence,, then I should be most ready to 
acknowledge that this principle was in its nature, end, 
and origin, selfish, slippery, treacherous, inert, inoperative 
but as an instrument of some immediate stimulus, in- 
capable of generous sacrifice or painful exertion, and 
deserving a name and title accordingly, leading one to 
bestow upon it its proper attributes. But the very reverse 
of all this happens. The mind is tenacious of remote 
purposes, indifferent to immediate feelings, which cannot 
consist with the nature of a rational and voluntary agent. 
Instead of the animalcule swimming in pleasure and 
gliding from pain, the principle of self-love is incessantly 
to the imagination or sense of duty what the fly is to the 
spider — that fixes its stings into it, involves it in its web, 



Self-love and Benevolence. 85 

sucks its blood, and preys upon its vitals! Does the 
spider do all this to please the fly ? Just as much as 
Eegulus returned to Carthage, and was rolled down a hill 
in a barrel with iron spikes in it to please himself ! The 
imagination or understanding is no less the enemy of our 
pleasure than of our interest. It will not let us be at ease 
till we have accomplished certain objects with which we 
have ourselves no concern but as melancholy truths. 

A. But the spider you have so quaintly conjured 
up is a different animal from the fly. The imagination 
on which you lay so much stress is a part of one's-self. 

B. I grant it : and for that very reason, self-love, or a 
principle tending exclusively to our own immediate 
gratification or future advantage, neither is nor can be the 
sole spring of action id the human mind. 

A. I cannot see that at all. 

D. Nay, I think he has made it out better than usual. 

B. Imagination is another name for an interest in things 
out of ourselves, which must naturally run counter to our 
own. Self-love, for so fine and smooth-spoken a gentleman, 
leads his friends into odd scrapes. The situation of Ee- 
gulus in a barrel with iron spikes in it was not a very easy 
one : but, say the advocates of refined self-love, their points 
were a succession of agreeable punctures in his sides, 
compared with the stings of dishonour, But what bound 
him to this dreadful alternative ? Not self-love. When 
the pursuit of honour becomes troublesome, " throw honour 
to the dogs — I'll none of it ! " This seems the true 
Epicurean solution. Philosophical self-love seems neither 
a voluptuary nor an effeminate coward, but a cynic, and 
even a martyr ; so that I am afraid he will hardly dare show 
his face at Yery's, and that, with this knowledge of his 
character, even the countenance of the Count Destutt de 
Tracy will not procure his admission to the saloons. 

A. The Count Destutt de Tracy, did you say ? Who is 
he ? I never heard of him. 



86 Self-love and Benevolence. 



B. He is the author of the celebrated Ideologic, which 
Buonaparte denounced to the Chamber of Peers as the cause 
of his disasters in Eussia. He is equally hated by the 
Bourbons ; and, what is more extraordinary still, he is 
patronised by Ferdinand VII. , who settled a pension of 
two hundred crowns a year on the translator of his works. 
He speaks of Condillac as having " created the science of 
Ideology," and holds Helvetius for a true philosopher. 

A. Which you do not ! I think it a pity you should 
affect singularity of opinion in such matters, when you 
have all the most sensible and best-informed judges against 
you. 

B. I am sorry for it too ; but I am afraid I can hardly 
expect you with me, till I have all Europe on my side, of 
which I see no chance while the Englishman, with his 
notions. of solid beef and pudding, holds fast by his sub- 
stantial identity, and the Frenchman, with his lighter food 
and air, mistakes every shadowy impulse for himself. 

_D. You deny, I think, that personal identity, in the 
qualified way in which you think proper to admit it, is any 
ground for the doctrine of self-interest ? 

B. Yes, in an exclusive and absolute sense, I do un- 
doubtedly, that is, in the sense in which it is affirmed by 
metaphysicians, and ordinarily believed in. 

D. Could you not go over the ground briefly, without 
entering into technicalities ? 

B. Not easily ; but stop me when I entangle myself in 
difficulties. A person fancies, or feels habitually, that he 
has a positive, substantial interest in his own welfare 
(generally speaking), just as much as he has in any actual 
sensation that he feels, because he is always and necessarily 
the same self. What is his interest at one time is there- 
fore equally Ms interest at all other times. This is taken 
for granted as a self-evident proposition. Say he does not 
feel a particular benefit or injury at this present moment, 
yet it is he who is to feel it, which comes to the same 



■u 



Self -Jove and Benevolence. 87 

thing. Where there is this continued identity of person, 
there must also be a correspondent identity of interest. I 
have an abstract, unavoidable interest in whatever can be- 
fall myself, which I can have or feel in no other person 
living, because I am always, under every possible circum- 
stance, the self-same individual, and not any other indi- 
vidual, whatsoever. In short, this word self (so closely do 
a number of associations cling round it and cement it 
together) is supposed to represent as it were a given con- 
crete substance, as much one thing as anything in nature 
can possibly be, and the centre or substratum in which the 
different impressions and ramifications of my being meet 
and are indissolutely knit together. 

A. And you propose, then, seriously to take " this one 
entire and perfect chrysolite," this self, this " precious 
jewel of the soul," this rock on which mankind have built 
their faith for ages, and at one blow shatter it to pieces 
with the sledge-hammer, or displace it from its hold in 
the imagination with the wrenching-irons of metaphysics ? 

B. I am willing to use my best endeavours for that 
purpose. 

D. You really ought ; for you have the prejudices of 
the whole world against you. 

B. I grant the prejudices are formidable ; and I should 
despair, did I not think my reasons even stronger. 
Besides, without altering the opinions of the whole world, 
I might be contented with the suffrages of one or two in- 
telligent people. 

D. Nay, you will prevail by flattery, if not by argu- 
ment. 

A. That is something newer than all the rest. 

B. " Plain truth," dear A , " needs no flowers of 

speech." 

D. Let me rightly understand you. Do you mean to 
say that I am not C. D. and that you are not W. B., or that 
we shall not both of us remain so to the end of the chapter, 



88 Self-love and Benevolence. 



without a possibility of ever changing places with each 
other ? 

B. I am afraid, if yon go to that, there is very little 
chance that 

u I shall be ever mistaken for you" 

But with all this precise individuality and inviolable 
identity that you speak of, let me ask, Are you not a 
little changed (less so, it is true, than most people) from 
what you were twenty years ago ? Or do you expect to 
appear the same that you are now twenty years hence ? 

_D. " ~No more of that if thou lovest me." We know what 
we are, but we know not what we shall be. 

B. A truce, then; but be assured that, whenever you 
happen to fling up your part, there will be no other person 
found to attempt it after you. 

D. Pray, favour us with your paradox, without further 
preface. 

B. I will try then to match my paradox against your 
prejudice, which, as it is armed all in proof, to make my 
impression on it I must, I suppose, take aim at the rivets ; 
and if I can hit them, if I do not (round and smooth as it 
is) cut it into three pieces, and show that two parts in three 
are substance and the third and principal part shadow, 
never believe me again. Your real self ends exactly where 
your pretended self-interest begins ; and in calculating 
upon this principle as a solid, permanent, absolute, self- 
evident truth, you are mocked with a name. 

1). How so ? I hear, but do not see. 

B. You must allow that this identical, indivisible, 
ostensible self is at any rate distinguishable into three 
parts — the past, the present, and future ? 

1), I see no harm in that. 

B. It is nearly all I ask. Well, then, I admit that you 
have a peculiar, emphatic, incommunicable and exclusive 
interest or fellow feeling in the two first of these selves ; 
but I deny resolutely and unequivocally that you have any 



. 



Self-love and Benevolence. 89 

such natural, absolute, unavoidable, and mechanical 
interest in the last self, or in your future being, the in- 
terest you take in it being necessarily the offspring of 
understanding and imagination (aided by habit and 
circumstances), like that which you take in the welfare of 
others, and yet this last interest is the only one that is 
ever the object of rational and voluntary pursuit, or that 
ever comes into competition with the interests of others. 

D. I am still to seek for the connecting clue. 

B. I am almost ashamed to ask for your attention to a 
statement so very plain that it seems to border on a truism. 
I have an interest of a peculiar and limited nature in my 
present self, inasmuch as I feel my actual sensations not 
simply in a degree, but in a way and by means of faculties 
which afford me not the smallest intimation of the sensations 
of others. I cannot possibly feel the sensations of any one 
else, nor consequently take the slightest interest in them 
as such. I have no nerves communicating with another's 
brain, and transmitting to me either the glow of pleasure 
or the agony of pain which he may feel at the present 
moment by means of his senses. So far, therefore, namely, 
so far as my present self or immediate sensations are con- 
cerned, I am cut off from all sympathy with others. I 
stand alone in the world, a perfectly insulated individual, 
necessarily and in the most unqualified sense indifferent to 
all that passes around me, and that does not in the first 
instance affect myself, for otherwise I neither have nor can 
have the remotest consciousness of it as a matter of organic 
sensation, any more than the mole has of light or the deaf 
adder of sounds. 

D. Spoken like an oracle. 

B. Again, I have a similar peculiar, mechanical, and 
untransferable interest in my past self, because I remember, 
and can dwell upon my past sensations (even after 
the objects are removed) also in a way and by means 
of faculties which do not give me the smallest insight 



90 Self-love and Benevolence. 

into or sympathy with the past feelings of others. 
I may conjecture and fancy what those feelings have been ; 
and so I do. But I have no memory or continued con- 
sciousness of what either of good or evil may have found 
a place in their bosoms, no secret spring that, being 
touched, vibrates to the hopes and wishes that are no 
more, unlocks the chambers of the past with the same 
assurance of reality, or identifies my feelings with theirs 
in the same intimate manner as with those which I have 
already felt in my own person. Here again, then, there is a 
real, undoubted, original and positive foundation for the 
notion of self to rest upon ; for in relation to my former 
self and past feelings, I do possess a faculty which 
serves to unite me more especially to my own being, and 
at the same time draws a distinct and impassable line 
around that being, separating it from every other. A 
door of communication stands always open between my 
present consciousness and my past feelings, which is 
locked and barred by the hand of Nature and the con- 
stitution of the human understanding against the intrusion 
of any straggling impressions from the minds of others. 
I can only see into their real history darkly and by 
reflection. To sympathise with their joys or sorrows, and 
place myself in their situation either now or formerly, 
I must proceed by guess work, and borrow the use of the 
common faculty of imagination. I am ready to acknow- 
ledge, then, that in what regards the past as well as the 
present, there is a strict metaphysical distinction between 
myself and others, and that my personal identity so far, 
or in the close, continued, inseparable connection between 
my past and present impressions, is firmly and irrevocably 
established. 

D. You go on swimmingly. So far all is sufficiently 
clear. 

B. But now comes the rub : for beyond that point I 
deny that the doctrine of personal identity or self-interest 






Self love and Benevolence. 91 

(as a consequence from it) has any foundation to rest 
upon but a confusion of names and ideas. It has none in 
the nature of things or of the human mind. For I have 
no faculty by which I can project myself into the future, 
or hold the same sort of palpable, tangible, immediate, 
and exclusive communication with my future feelings in 
the same manner as I am made to feel the present 
moment by means of the senses, or the past moment by 
means of memory. If I have any such faculty, expressly 
set apart for the purpose, name it. If I have no such 
faculty, I can have no such interest. In order that I 
may possess a proper personal identity so as to live, 
breathe, and feel along the whole line of my existence in 
the same intense and intimate mode, it is absolutely 
necessary to have some general medium or faculty by 
which my successive impressions are blended and amalga- 
mated together, and to maintain and support this extra- 
ordinary interest. But so far from there being any 
foundation for this merging and incorporating of my 
future in my present self, there is no link of connection, 
no sympathy, no reaction, no mutual consciousness between 
them, nor even a possibility of anything of the kind, in a 
mechanical and personal sense. Up to the present point, 
the spot on which we stand, the doctrine of personal 
identity holds good ; hitherto the proud and exclusive 
pretensions of self come, but no farther. The rest is air, 
is nothing, is a name, or but the common ground of reason 
and humanity. If I wish to pass beyond this point and 
look into my own future lot, or anticipate my future weal 
or woe before it has had an existence, I can do so by 
means of the same faculties by which I enter into and 
identify myself with the welfare, the being, and interests 
of others, but only by these. As I have already said, I 
have no particular organ or faculty of self-interest, in 
that case made and provided. I have no sensation of 
what is to happen to myself in future, no presentiment of 



92 Self-love and Benevolence. 

it, no instinctive sympathy with it, nor consequently any 
abstract and unavoidable self-interest in it. Now mark : 
it is only in regard to my past and present being, that a 
broad and insurmountable barrier is placed between my- 
self and others ; as to future objects there is no absolute 
and fundamental distinction whatever. But it is only 
these last that are the objects of any rational or practical 
interest. The idea of self properly attaches to objects 
of sense or memory, but these can never be the objects of 
action or of voluntary pursuit, which must, by the 
supposition, have an eye to future events. But with res- 
pect to these the chain of self interest is dissolved and 
falls in pieces by the very necessity of our nature, and 
our obligations to self as a blind; mechanical, unsociable 
principle are lost in the general law which binds us to 
the pursuit of good as it comes within our reach and 
knowledge. 

A, A most lame and impotent conclusion, I must say. 
Do you mean to affirm 'that you have really the same 
interest in another's welfare that you have in your own ? 

B. I do not wish to assert anything without proof. 
Will you tell me, if you have this particular interest in 
yourself, what faculty is, it that gives it you — to what 
conjuration and mighty magic it is owing — or whether it 
is merely the name of self that is to be considered as a 
proof of all the absurdities and impossibilities that can be 
drawn from it ? 

A. I do not see that you have hitherto pointed out 
any. 

B. What ! not the impossiblity that you should be 
another being, with whom you have not a particle of fellow- 
feeling ? 

A. Another being ! Yes, I know it is always impossible 
for me to be another being. 

B. Ay, or yourself either, without such a fellow-feeling, 
for it is that which constitutes self. If not, explain to me 






Self -love and Benevolence. 93 

what you mean by self. But it is more convenient for 
you to let that magical sound lie involved in the obscurity 
of prejudice and language. You will please to take notice 
that it is not 1 who commence these hairbreadth distinc- 
tions and special pleading. I take the old ground of 
common sense and natural feeling, and maintain that though 
in a popular, practical sense mankind are strongly swayed 
by self-interest, yet in the same ordinary sense they are 
also governed by motives of good-nature, compassion, 
friendship, virtue, honour, &c. Now all this is denied by 
your modern metaphysicians, who w T ould reduce every- 
thing to abstract self-interest, and exclude every other 
mixed motive or social tie in a strict philosophical sense. 
They would drive me from my ground by scholastic sub- 
tleties and newfangled phrases ; am I to blame, then, if 
I take them at their word, and try to foil them at their 
own weapons ? Either stick to the unpretending jog-trot 
notions on the subject, or if you are determined to refine 
in analysing words and arguments, do not be angry if I 
follow the example set me, or even go a little farther to 
arrive at the truth. Shall we proceed on this under- 
standing. 

A. As you please. 

B. We have got so far, then (if I mistake not, and if 
there is not some flaw in the argument which I am 
unable to detect), that the past and present (which alone 
can appeal to our selfish faculties) are not the objects of 
action, and that the future (which can alone be the 
object of practical pursuit) has no particular claim or 
hold upon self. All action, all passion, all morality and 
self-interest, is prospective. 

A. You have not made that point quite clear. What, 
then, is meant by a present interest, by the gratification of 
the present moment, as opposed to a future one ? 

B. Nothing, in a strict sense ; or rather, in common 
speech, you mean a near one, the interest of the next 



94 Self-love and Benevolence. 

moment, the next hour, the next day, the next year, as it 
happens. 

A. What ! would you have me believe that I snatch my 
hand out of the flame of a candle from a calculation of 
future consequences? 

D. {laughing.) A. had better not meddle with that 
question. B. is in his element there. It is his old and 
favourite illustration. 

B. Do you not snatch your hand out of the fire to pro- 
cure ease from pain ? 

A. No doubt, I do. 

B. And is not this case subsequent to the act, and the 
act itself to the feeling of pain, which caused it ? 

A. It may be so ; but the interval is so slight that we 
are not sensible of it. 

B. Nature is nicer in her distinctions than we. Thus 
you could not lift the food to your mouth, but upon the 
same principle. The viands are indeed tempting, but if it 
were the sight or smell of these alone that attracted you, 
you would remain satisfied with them. But you use means 
to en(Js, neither of which exist till you employ or produce 
them, and which would never exist if the understanding 
which foresees them did not run on before the actual 
objects and purvey to appetite. If you say it is habit, it 
is partly so ; but that habit would never have been formed 
were it not for the connection between cause and effect, 
which always takes place in the order of time, or of what 
Hume calls antecedents and consequents. 

A. I confess I think this a mighty microscopic way of 
looking at the subject. 

B. Yet you object equally to more vague and sweeping 
generalities. Let me, however, endeavour to draw the 
knot a little tighter, as it has a considerable weight to 
bear — no less, in my opinion, than the whole world of 
moral sentiments. All voluntary action must relate to the 
future : but the future can only exist or influence the mind 






Self-love and Benevolence. 95 

as an object of imagination and forethought ; therefore the 
motive to voluntary action, to all that we seek or shun, 
must be in all cases ideal and problematical. The thing 
itself which is an object of pursuit can never co-exist with 
the motives which make it an object of pursuit. No one 
will say that the past can be an object either of prevention 
or pursuit- It may be a subject of involuntary regrets, or 
may give rise to the starts and flaws of passion ; but we 
cannot set about seriously recalling or altering it. Neither 
can that which at present exists, or is an object of sensa- 
tion, be at the same time an object of action or of volition, 
since if it is, no volition or exertion of mine can for the 
instant make it to be other than it is. I can make it cease 
to be, indeed, but this relates to the future, to the supposed 
non-existence of the object, and not to its actual impression 
on me. For a thing to be icilled, it must necessarily not 
be. Over my past and present impressions my will has no 
control : they are placed, according to the poet, beyond 
the reach of fate, much more of human meaus. In order 
that I may take an effectual and consistent interest in 
anything, that it may be an object of hope or fear, of 
desire or dread, it must be a thing still to come, a thing 
still in doubt, depending on circumstances and the means 
used to bring about or avert it. It is my will that deter- 
mines its existence or the contrary (otherwise there would 
be no use in troubling one's-self about it) ; it does not 
itself lay its peremptory, inexorable mandates on my will. 
For it is as yet (and must be in order to be the rational 
object of a moment's deliberation) a non-entity, a possibility 
merely, and it is plain that nothing can be the cause of 
nothing. That which is not, cannot act, much less can it 
act mechanically, physically, ail-powerfully. So far is it 
from being true that a real and practical interest in any- 
thing are convertible terms, that a practical interest can 
never by any possible chance be a real one, that is, excited 
by the presence of a real object or by mechanical sympathy. 



96 Self -love and Benevolence. 

I cannot assuredly be induced by a present object to take 
means to make it exist — it can be no more than present 
to me — or if it is past, it is too late to think of recovering 
the occasion or preventing it now. But the future, the 
future is all our own; or rather it belongs equally to 
others. The world of action, then, of business or pleasure, 
of self-love or benevolence, is not made up of solid mate- 
rials, moved by downright, solid springs ; it is essentially 
a void, an unreal mockery, both in regard to ourselves 
and others, except as it is filled up, animated, and set in 
motion by human thoughts and purposes. The ingredients 
of passion, action, and properly of interest are never posi- 
tive, palpable matter s-of -fact, concrete existences, but 
symbolical representations of events lodged in the bosom 
of futurity, and teaching us, by timely anticipation and 
watchful zeal, to build up the fabric of our own or others' 
future weal. 

A. Do we not sometimes plot their woe with at least 
equal good- will ? 

J5. Not much oftener than we are accessory to our own. 

A. I must say that savours more to me of an antithesis 
than of an answer. 

B. For once, be it so. 

A. But surely there is a difference between a real and 
an imaginary interest ? A history is not a romance. 

JB. Yes ; but in this sense the feelings and interests of 
others are in the end as real, as such matters of fact as 
mine or yours can be. The history of the world is not a 
romance, though you and I have had only a small share in 
it. You would turn everything into autobiography. The 
interests of others are no more chimerical, visionary, fan- 
tastic, than my own, being founded in truth, and both are 
brought home to my bosom in the same way by force of 
imagination and sympathy. 

D. But in addition to all this sympathy that you make 
such a rout about, it is I who am to feel a real, downright 






Self -love and Benevolence. 97 

interest in my own future good, and I shall feel no sucb 
interest in another person's. Does not this make a wide, 
nay a total difference in the case ? Am I to have no more 
affection for my own flesh and blood than for another's ? 

B. This would indeed make an entire difference in the 
case, if your interest in your own good were founded in 
your affection for yourself, and not your affection for your- 
self in your attachment to your own good. If you were 
attached to your own good merely because it was yours, I 
do not see why you should not be equally attached to your 
own ill — both are equally yours ! Your own person or 
that of others would, I take it, be alike indifferent to you, 
but for the degree of sympathy you have with the feelings 
of either. Take away the sense or apprehension of 
pleasure or pain, and you would care no more about 
yourself than you do about the hair of your head or the 
paring of your nails, the parting with which gives you no 
sensible uneasiness at the time or on after-reflection 

D. But up to the present moment you allow that I have 
a particular interest in my proper self. Where, then, am 
I to stop, or how draw the line between my real and my 
imaginary identity ? 

B. The line is drawn for you by the nature of things. 
Or if the difference between reality and imagination is so 
small that you cannot perceive it, it only shows the 
strength of the latter. Certain it is that we can no more 
anticipate our future being than we can change places 
with another individual, except in an ideal and figurative 
sense. But it is just as impossible that I should have an 
actual sensation of and interest in my future feelings as 
that I should have an actual sensation of and interest in 
what another feels at the present instant. An essential 
and irreconcileable difference in our primary faculties 
forbids it. The future, were it the next moment, were it 
an object nearest and dearest to our hearts, is a dull blank, 
opaque, impervious to sense as an object close to the eye 

H 



98 Self-love and Benevolence. 

of the blind, did not the ray of reason and reflection en- 
lighten it. We can never say to its fleeting, painted 
essence, " Come, let me clutch thee !" it is a thing of air, 
a phantom that flies before us, and we follow it, and witfi 
respect to all but our past and present sensations, which 
are no longer anything to action, we totter on the brink of 
nothing. That self which we project before us into it, 
that we make our proxy or representative, and empower to 
embody, and transmit back to us all our real, substantial 
interests before they have had an existence, except in our 
imaginations, is but a shadow of ourselves, a bundle of 
habits, passions, and prejudices, a body that falls in pieces 
at the touch of reason or the approach of inquiry. It is 
true, we do build up such an imaginary self, and a pro- 
portionable interest in it ; we clothe it with the associa- 
tions of the past and present, we disguise it in the drapery 
of language, we add to it the strength of passion and the 
warmth of affection, till we at length come to class our 
whole existence under one head, and fancy our future 
history a solid, permanent, and actual continuation of our 
immediate being; but all this only proves the force of 
imagination and habit to build up such a structure on a 
merely partial foundation, and does not alter the true 
nature and distinction of things. On the same foundation 
are built up nearly as high natural affection, friendship, 
the love of country, of religion, &c. But of this presently. 
What shows that the doctrine of self-interest, however 
high it may rear its head, or however impregnable it may 
seem to attack, is a mere contradiction, 

" In terms a fallacy, in fact a fiction," 

is this siugle consideration, that we never know what is to 
happen to us beforehand — no, not even for a moment — and 
that we cannot so much as tell whether we shall be alive 
a year, a month, or a day hence. We have no presenti- 
ment of what awaits us, making us feel the future in the 
instant. Indeed such an insight into futurity would be 



Self-love and Benevolence. 99 

inconsistent with itself, or we must become mere passive 
instruments in the hands of fate. A house may fall on 
my head as I go from this, I may be crushed to pieces by 
a carriage running over me, or I may receive a piece of 
news that is death to my hopes, before another four-and- 
twenty hours are passed over, and yet I feel nothing of 
the blow that is thus to stagger and stun me. I laugh 
and am well. I have no warning given me either of the 
course or the consequence (in truth, if I had, I should, 
if possible, avoid it). This continued self-interest that 
watches over all my concerns alike, past, present, and 
future, and concentrates them all in one powerful and 
invariable principle of action, is useless here, leaves me 
at a loss at my greatest need, is torpid, silent, dead, and I 
have no more consciousness of what so nearly affects me, 
and no more care about it (till I find out my danger by 
other and natural means), than if no such thing were ever 
to happen, or were to happen to the Man in the Moon. It 
has been said that 

" Coming events cast their shadows before ;" 
but this beautiful line is not verified in the ordinary prose 
of life. That it is not, is a staggering consideration for 
your fine practical, instinctive, abstracted, comprehensive, 
uniform principle of self-interest. Don't you think so, 
D ? 

_D. I shall not answer you. Am I to give up my exist- 
ence for an idle sophism ? You heap riddle upon riddle ; 
but I am mystery-proof. I still feel my personal identity 
as I do the chair I sit on, though I am enveloped in a 
cloud of smoke and words. Let me have your answer 
to a plain question. — Suppose I were actually to see a 
coach coming along, and I was in danger of being run 
over, what I want to know, is, should I not try to save 
myself sooner than any other person ? 

B. No, you would first try to save a sister, if she were 
with you. 

LOfC 



100 Self -love and Benevolence. 

A. Surely that would be a very curious instance of self, 
though I do not deny it. 

B. I do not think so. I believe there is hardly any 
one who does not prefer some one to themselves. For 
example, let us look into Waverley. 

A. Ay, that is the way that you take your ideas of 
philosophy, from novels and romances, as if they were 
sound evidence. 

B. If my conclusions are as true to nature as my pre- 
mises, I shall be satisfied. Here is the passage I was 
going to quote : " I was only ganging to say, my lord," 
said Evan, in what he meant to be an insinuating manner, 
" that if your excellent honour and the honourable court 
would let Yich Ian Yohr go free just this once, and let 
him gae back to France and not trouble King George's 
government again, that any six o' the very best of his clan 
will be willing to be justified in his stead ; and if you'll 
just let me gae down to Glennaquoich, I'll fetch them up 
to ye myself to head or hang, and you may begin with me 
the very first man." 1 

A. But such instances as this are the effect of habit and 
strong prejudice. We can hardly argue from so barbarous 
a state of society. 

B. Excuse me there. I contend that our preference of 
ourselves is just as much the effect of habit, and very fre- 
quently a more unaccountable and unreasonable one than 
any other. 

A. I should like to hear how you can possibly make 
that out. 

B. If you will not condemn me before you hear what I 

have to say, I will try. You allow that D , in the 

case we have been talking of, would perhaps run a little 
risk for you or me ; but if it were a perfect stranger, he 
would get out of the way as fast as his legs would carry 
him, and leave the stranger to shift for himself. 

1 Waverley, vol. iii, p. 201. 



Self-love and Benevolence. 101 

A. Yes ; and does not that overturn your whole 
theory ? 

B. It would if my theory were as devoid of common 
sense as you are pleased to suppose ; that is, if because I 
deny an original and absolute distinction in nature (where 
there is no such thing), it followed that I must deny that 
circumstances, intimacy, habit, knowledge, or a variety of 
incidental causes could have any influence on our affections 
and actions. My inference is just the contrary. For 

would you not say that D cared little about the 

stranger, for this plain reason, that he knew nothing about 
him? 

A. No doubt. 

B. And he would care rather more about you and me, 
because he knows more about us ? 

A. Why yes, it would seem so. 

B. And he would care still more about a sister (accord- 
ing to the same supposition), because he would be still 
better acquainted with her, and had been more constantly 
with her ? 

A. I will not deny it. 

B. And it is on the same principle (generally speaking) 
that a man cares most of all about himself, because he 
knows more about himself than about anybody else, that 
he is more in the secret of his own most intimate thoughts 
and feelings, and more in the habit of providing for his 
own wants and wishes, which he can anticipate with 
greater liveliness and certainty than those of others, from 
being more nearly " made and moulded of things past.'' 
The poetical fiction is rendered easier, and assisted by my 
acquaintance with myself, just as it is by the ties of kindred 
or habits of friendly intercourse. There is no farther 
approach made to the doctrines of self-love ,and personal 
identity. 

D. E , here is B trying to persuade me I am 

not myself. 



102 Self love and Benevolence. 

E. Sometimes you are not. 

D. But he says that I never am. Or is it only that I 
am not to be so ? 

B. Nay, I hope " thou art to continue, thou naughty 

varlet "— 

" Here and hereafter, if the last may be ?" 

You have been yourself (nobody like you) for the last 
forty years of your life : you would not prematurely stuff 
the next twenty into the account, till you have had them 
fairly out? 

D. Not for the world, I have too great an affection for 
them. 

B. Yet I think you would have less if you did not 
look forward to pass them among old books, old friends, 
old haunts. If you were cut off from all these, you would 
be less anxious about what was left of yourself. 

_D. I would rather be the Wandering Jew than not be at 
all. 

B. Or you would not be the person I always took you 
for. 

D. Does not this willingness to be the Wandering Jew, 
rather than nobody, seem to indicate that there is an 
abstract attachment to self, to the bare idea of existence, 
independently of circumstances or habit. 

B. It must be a very loose and straggling one. You 
mix up some of your old recollections and favourite notions 
with your self-elect, and indulge them in your new charac- 
ter, or you would trouble yourself very little about it. If 
you do not come in in some shape or other, it is merely 
saying that you would be sorry if the Wandering Jew were 
to disappear from the earth, however strictly he may have 
hitherto maintained his incognito. 

D. There is something in that; and as well as I re- 
member, there is a curious but exceedingly mystical illus- 
tration of this point in an original Essay of yours which I 
have read and spoken to you about. 






8elf4ove and Benevolence. 103 

B. I believe there is ; but A is tired of making 

objections, and I of answering them to no purpose. 

• D. I have the book in the closet, and if you like, we 
will turn to the place. It is after that burst of enthusi- 
astic recollection (the only one in the book) that Southey 
said at the time was something between the manner of 
Milton's prose- works and Jeremy Taylor. 

JB. Ah ! I as little thought then that I should ever be 
set down as a florid prose- writer, as that he would become 
poet-laureate ! 

J. L. here took the volume from his brother, and read 
the following passage from it. 

"I do not think I should illustrate the foregoing 
reasoning so well by anything I could add on the subject, 
as by relating the manner in which it first struck me. 
There are moments in the life of a solitary thinker which 
are to him what the evening of some great victory is to 
the conqueror and hero — milder triumphs, long remem- 
bered with truer and deeper delight. And though the 
shouts of multitudes do not hail his success — though gay 
trophies, though the sounds of music, the glittering of 
armour, and the neighing of steeds do not mingle with his 
joy, yet shall he not want monuments and witnesses of his 
glory — the deep forest, the willowy brook, the gathering 
clouds of winter, or the silent gloom of his own chamber, 
'faithful remembrancers of his high endeavour, and his 
glad success,' that, as time passes by him with unreturn- 
ing wing, still awaken the consciousness of a spirit 
patient, indefatigable in the search of truth, and the hope 
of surviving in the thoughts and minds of other men. I 
remember I had been reading a speech which Mirabaud 
(the author of the System of Nature) has put into the 
mouth of a supposed Atheist at the Last Judgment ; and 
was afterwards led on by some means or other to consider 
the question, whether it could properly be said to be an 



104 Self-love mid Benevolence, 

act of virtue in any one to sacrifice his own final happiness 
to that of any other person or number of persons, if it 
were possible for the one ever to be made the price of the 
other ? Suppose it were my own case — that it were in my 
power to save twenty other persons by voluntarily consent- 
ing to suffer for them : Why should I not do a generous 
thing, and never trouble myself about what might be the 
consequence to myself the Lord knows when ? 

" The reason why a man should prefer his own future 
welfare to that of others is, that he has a necessary, absolute 
interest in the one, which he cannot have in the other — 
and this, again, is a consequence of his being always the 
same individual, of his continued identity with himself. 
The difference, I thought, was this, that however insensible 
I may be to my own interest at any future period, yet 
when the time comes I shall feel differently about it. I 
shall then judge of it from the actual impression of the 
object, that is, truly and certainly ; and as I shall still be 
conscious of my past feelings, and shall bitterly regret 
my own folly and insensibility, I ought, as a rational 
agent, to be determined now by what I shall then wish I 
had done, when I shall feel the consequences of my actions 
most deeply and sensibly. It is this continued conscious- 
ness of my own feelings which gives me an immediate 
interest in whatever relates to my future welfare, and 
makes me at all times accountable to myself for my own 
conduct. As, therefore, this consciousness will be renewed 
in me after death, if I exist again at all — But stop — as I 
must be conscious of my past feelings to be myself, and 
as this conscious being will be myself, how if that con- 
sciousness should be transferred to some other being? 
How am I to know that I am not imposed upon by a false 
claim of identity? But that is ridiculous, because you 
will have no other self than that which arises from this 
very consciousness. Why, then, this self may be multiplied 
in as many different beings as the Deity may think propei 



Self-love and Benevolence. 105 

to endue with the same consciousness ; which, if it can be 
renewed at will in any one instance, may clearly be so in 
a hundred others. Am I to regard all these as equally 
myself ? Am I equally interested in the fate of all ? Or 
if I must iix upon some one of them in particular as my 
representative and other self, how am I to be determined 
in my choice? Here, then, I saw an end put to my 
speculations about absolute self-interest and personal 
identity. I saw plainly that the consciousness of my own 
feelings, which is made the foundation of my continued 
interest in them, could not extend to what had never 
been, and might never be ; that my identity with myself 
must be confined to the connection between my past 
and present being ; that with respect to my future feelings 
or interests, they could have no communication with, or 
influence over, my present feelings and interests, merely 
because they were future ; that I shall be hereafter affected 
by the recollection of my past feelings and action ; and 
my remorse be equally heightened by reflecting on my 
past folly and late-earned wisdom, whether I am really the 
same being, or have only the same consciousness renewed 
in me ; but that to suppose that this remorse can react in 
the reverse order on my present feelings, or give me an 
immediate interest in my future feelings, before they exist, 
is an express contradiction in terms. It can only affect 
me as an imaginary idea, or an idea of truth. But so may 
the interests of others ; and the question proposed was, 
whether I have not some real, necessary, absolute interest 
in whatever relates to my future being, in consequence of 
my immediate connection with myself— independently of the 
general impression which all positive ideas have on my 
mind. How, then, can this pretended unity of conscious- 
ness which it only reflected from the past — which makes 
me so little acquainted with the future that I cannot even 
tell for a moment how long it will be continued, whether 
it will be entirely interrupted by or renewed in me after 



106 Self-love and Benevolence. 

death, and which might be multiplied in I don't know how 
many different beings, and prolonged by complicated 
sufferings, without my being any the wiser for it, — how, I 
say, can a principle of this sort identify my present with 
my future interests, and make me as much a participator 
in what does not at all affect me as if it were actually im- 
pressed on my senses ? It is plain, as this conscious being 
may be decompounded, entirely destroyed, renewed again, 
or multiplied in a great number of beings, and as, which- 
ever of these takes place, it cannot produce the least 
alteration in my present being — that what I am does not 
depend on what I am to be, and that there is no communi- 
cation between my future interests, and the motives by 
which my present conduct must be governed. This can 
no more be influenced by what may be my future feelings 
with respect to it, than it will then be possible for me to 
alter my past conduct by wishing that I had acted diffe- 
rently. I cannot, therefore, have a principle of active 
self-interest arising out of the immediate connection 
between my present and future self, for no such connection 
exists, or is possible. I am what I am in spite of the future. 
My feelings, actions, and interests, must be determined by 
causes already existing and acting, and are absolutely 
independent of the future. Where there is not an inter- 
community of feelings, there can be no identity of interests. 
My personal interest in anything must refer either to the 
interest excited by the actual impression of the object, 
which cannot be felt before it exists, and can last no longer 
than while the impression lasts ; or it may refer to the 
particular manner in which I am mechanically affected 
by the idea of my own impressions in the absence of the 
object. I can, therefore, have no proper personal interest 
in my future impressions, since neither my ideas of future 
objects, nor my feelings with respect to them, can be 
excited either directly or indirectly by themselves, or by 
any ideas or feelings accompanying them, without a com- 



On Disagreeable People. 107 

plete transposition of the order in which causes and effects 
follow one another in nature. The only reason for my 
preferring my future interest to that of others, must arise 
from my anticipating it with greater warmth of present 
imagination. It is this greater liveliness and force with 
which I can enter into my future feelings, that in a manner 
identifies them with my present being ; and this notion of 
identity being once formed, the mind makes use of it to 
strengthen its habitual propensity, by giving to personal 
motives a reality and absolute truth which they can never 
have. Hence it has been inferred that my real, substan- 
tial interest in anything must be derived in some indirect 
manner from the impression of the object itself, as if that 
could have any sort of communication with my present 
feelings, or excite any interest in my mind but by means 
of the imagination, which is naturally affected in a certain 
manner by the prospect of future good or evil." 1 

J. L. 2 " This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard." 
(7. L. " It is the strangest fellow, brother John !" 3 



On Disagreeable People. 

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are 
disagreeable to others. I do not here mean to speak of 
persons who offend intentionally, or are obnoxious to 
dislike from some palpable defect of mind or body, 
ugliness, pride, ill -humour, &c. ; but of those who are 
disagreeable in spite of themselves, and, as it might 
appear, with almost every qualification to recommend 

1 Principles of Human Action, 2nd edit., p. 70. 

2 So in the original, on a folio leaf in my possession. In the 
edition of 1839, J. L. and C. L. are altered to /. D. and C. D. Lamb 
and his brother are evidently the persons intended. But the quota- 
tion is, of course, only borrowed from Henry VI. part 1. v, 4. — Ed. 

3 In the reprint of Sketches and Essays, 1852, this article is 
omitted.— Ed. 



108 On Disagreeable People. 

them to others. This want of success is owing chiefly 
to something in what is called their manner; and this 
again has its foundation in a certain cross-grained and 
unsociable state of feeling on their part, which influences 
us, perhaps, without our distinctly adverting to it. The 
mind is a finer instrument than we sometimes suppose it, 
and is not only swayed by overt acts and tangible proofs, 
but has an instinctive feeling of the air of truth. We 
find many individuals in whose company we pass our 
time, and have no particular fault to find with their 
understandings or character, and yet we are never 
thoroughly satisfied with them : the reason will turn out 
to be, upon examination, that they are never thoroughly 
satisfied with themselves, but uneasy and out of sorts all 
the time ; and this makes us uneasy with them, without 
our reflecting on, or being able to discover the cause. 

Thus, for instance, we meet with persons who do us a 
number of kindnesses, who show us every mark of respect 
and good-will, who are friendly and serviceable — and yet 
we do not feel grateful to them, after all. We reproach 
ourselves with this as caprice or insensibility, and try to 
get the better of it ; but there is something in their way 
of doing things that prevents us from feeling cordial or 
sincerely obliged to them. We think them very worthy 
people, and would be glad of an opportunity to do them a 
good turn if it were in our power ; but we cannot get 
beyond this : the utmost we can do is to save appearances, 
and not come to an open rupture with them. The truth 
is, in all such cases, we do not sympathise (as we ought) 
with them, because they do not sympathise (as they ought) 
with us. They have done what they did from a sense of 
duty in a cold dry manner, or from a meddlesome busy- 
body humour ; or to show their superiority over us, or to 
patronise our infirmity ; or they have dropped some hint 
by the way, or blundered upon some topic they should 
not, and have shown, by one means or other, that they 



On Disagreeable People. 109 

were occupied with anything but the pleasure they were 
affording us, or a delicate attention to our feelings. Such 
persons may be styled friendly grievances. They are 
commonly people of low spirits and disappointed views, 
who see the discouraging side of human life, and, with the 
best intentions in the world, contrive to make everything 
they have to do with uncomfortable. They are alive to 
your distress, and take pains to remove it ; but they have 
no satisfaction in the gaiety and ease they have communi- 
cated, and are on the look-out for some new occasion of 
signalising their zeal ; nor are they backward to insinuate 
that you will soon have need of their assistance, to guard 
you against running into fresh difficulties, or to extricate 
you from them. From large benevolence of soul and 
" discourse of reason, looking before and after," they are 
continually reminding you of something that has gone 
wrong in time past, or that may do so in that which is to 
come, and are surprised that their awkward hints, sly 
inuendos, blunt questions, and solemn features do not 
excite all the complacency and mutual good understanding 
in you which it is intended that they should. When they 
make themselves miserable on your account, it is hard 
that you will not lend them your countenance and 
support. This deplorable humour of theirs does not hit 
any one else. They are useful, but not agreeable people ; 
they may assist you in your affairs, but they depress and 
tyrannise over your feelings. When they have made you 
happy, they will not let you be so — have no enjoyment of 
the good they have done — will on no account part with 
their melancholy and desponding tone — and, by their 
mawkish insensibility and doleful grimaces, throw a damp 
over the triumph they are called upon to celebrate. 
They would keep you in hot water, that they may help 
you out of it. They will nurse you in a fit of sickness 
(congenial sufferers!) — arbitrate a law- suit for you, and 
embroil you deeper — procure you a loan of money ;— but 



110 On Disagreeable People. 

all the while they are only delighted with rubbing the 
sore place, and casting the colour of your mental or other 
disorders. "The whole need not a physician;" and, 
being once placed at ease and comfort, they have no 
farther use for you as subjects for their singular bene- 
ficence, and you are not sorry to be quit of their tiresome 
interference. The old proverb, A friend in need is a 
friend indeed, is not verified in them. The class of 
persons here spoken of are the very reverse of summer- 
friends, who court you in prosperity, flatter your vanity, 
are the humble servants of your follies, never see or 
allude to anything wrong, minister to your gaiety, smooth 
over every difficulty, and, with the slightest approach of 
misfortune or of anything unpleasant, take French 
leave — 

" As when, in prime of June, a burnisk'd fly, 
Sprung from the meads, o'er which he sweeps along, 
Cheer'd by the breathing bloom and vital sky, 
Tunes up, amid these airy halls, his song, 
Soothing at first the gay reposing throng ; 
And oft he sips their bowl, or, nearly drown'd, 
He thence recovering drives their beds among, 
And scares their tender sleep with trump profound ; 
Then out again he flies, to wing his mazy round/ ' l 

However we may despise such triflers, yet we regret them 
more than those well-meaning friends on whom a dull 
melancholy vapour hangs, that drags them and every one 
about them to the ground. 

Again, there are those who might be very agreeable 
people, if they had but spirit to be so ; but there is a 
narrow, unaspiring, under-bred tone in all they say or do. 
They have great sense and information — abound in a 
knowledge of character — have a fund of anecdote — are 
unexceptionable in manners and appearance — and yet we 
cannot make up our minds to like them : we are not glad 
to see them, nor sorry when they go away. Our fami- 

1 Thomson's Castle of Indolence, Canto i, st. 64, edit. 1841. 






On Disagreeable People. Ill 

liari ty with them, however great, wants the principle of 
cement, which is a certain appearance of frank cordiality 
and social enjoyment. They have no pleasure in the 
subjects of their own thoughts, and therefore can commu- 
nicate none to others. There is a dry, husky, grating 
manner — a pettiness of detail — a tenaciousness of par- 
ticulars, however trifling or unpleasant — a disposition to 
cavil — an aversion to enlarged and liberal views of 
things — in short, a hard, painful, unbending matter-of- 
fadnsss, from which the spirit and effect are banished, and 
the letter only is attended to, which makes it impossible 
to sympathise with their discourse. To make conversa- 
tion interesting or agreeable, there is required either the 
habitual tone of good company, which gives a favourable 
colouring to everything — or the warmth and enthusiasm 
of genius, which, though it may occasionally offend or be 
thrown off its guard, makes amends by its rapturous 
flights, and flings a glancing light upon all things. The 
literal and dogged style of conversation resembles that of 
a French picture, or its mechanical fidelity is like 
evidence given in a court of justice, or a police report. 

From the literal to the plain-spoken, the transition is 
easy. The most efficient weapon of offence is truth. 
Those who deal in dry and repulsive matters- of-fact, tire 
out their friends; those who blurt out hard and home 
truths, make themselves mortal enemies wherever they 
come. There are your blunt, honest creatures, who omit 
no opportunity of letting you know their minds, and are 
sure to tell you ail the ill, and conceal all the good they 
hear of you. They would not flatter you for the world, 
and to caution you against the malice of others, they 
think the province of a friend. This is not candour, but 
impudence; and yet they think it odd you are not 
charmed with their unreserved communicativeness of 
disposition. Gossips and tale-beaiers, on the contrary, 
who supply the tittle-tattle of the neighbourhood, flatter 



1 1 2 On Disagreeable People. 

you to your face, and laugh at you behind your back, are 
welcome and agreeable guests in all companies. Though 
you know it will be your turn next, yet for the sake of 
the immediate gratification, you are contented to pay your 
share of the public tax upon character, and are better 
pleased with the falsehoods that never reach your ears, 
than with the truths that others (less complaisant and 
more sincere) utter to your face — so short-sighted and 
willing to be imposed upon is our self-love ! There is a 
man, who has the air of not being convinced without an 
argument : you avoid him as if he were a lion in your 
path. There is another, who asks you fifty questions as 
to the commonest things you advance : you would sooner 
pardon a fellow who held a pistol to your breast and 
demanded your money. No one regards a turnpike- 
keeper, or a custom-house officer, with a friendly eye : he 
who stops you in an excursion of fancy, or ransacks the 
articles of your belief obstinately and churlishly, to 
distinguish the spurious from the genuine, is still more 
your foe. These inquisitors and cross-examiners upon 
system make ten enemies for every controversy in which 
they engage. The world dread nothing so much as being 
convinced of their errors. In doing them this piece of 
service, you make war equally on their prejudices, their 
interests, their pride, and indolence. You not only set up 
for a superiority of understanding over them, which they 
hate, but you deprive them of their ordinary grounds of 
action, their topics of discourse, of their confidence in 
themselves, and those to whom they have been accustomed 
to look up for instruction and advice. It is making 
children of them. You unhinge all their established 
opinions and trains of thought ; and after leaving them in 
this listless, vacant, unsettled state — dissatisfied with their 
own notions and shocked at yours — you expect them to 
court and be delighted with your company, because, 
forsooth, you have only expressed your sincere and con- 



On Disagreeable People. 113 

scientious convictions. Mankind are not deceived by 
professions, unless they choose. They think that this 
pill of true doctrine, however it may be gilded over, is 
fall of gall and bitterness to them ; and, again, it is a 
maxim of which the vulgar are firmly persuaded, that 
plain-speaking (as it is called), nine parts in ten, is spleen 
and self-opinion ; and the other part, perhaps, honesty. 
Those who will not abate an inch in argument, and are 
always seeking to recover the wind of you, are, in the eye 
of the world, disagreeable, unconscionable people, who 
ought to be sent to Coventry, or left to wrangle by them- 
selves. No persons, however, are more averse to con- 
tradiction than these same dogmatists. What shows our 
susceptibility on this point is, that there is no flattery so 
adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent. Any one, 
however mean his capacity or ill- qualified to judge, who 
gives way to all our sentiments, and never seems to think 
but as we do, is indeed an alter idem — another self; and 
we admit him without scruple into our entire confidence, 
" yea, into our heart of hearts." 

It is the same in books. Those which, under the 
disguise of plain-speaking, vent paradoxes, and set their 
faces against the " common-sense " of mankind, are neither 
" the volumes 

" that enrich the shops, 

That jfass with approbation through the land ;" 

nor, I fear, can it be added — 

" That bring their authors an immoital fame." 

They excite a clamour and opposition at first, and are in 
general soon consigned to oblivion. Even if the opinions 
are in the end adopted, the authors gain little by it, and 
their names remain in their original obloquy ; for the 
public will own no obligations to such ungracious bene- 
factors. In like manner, there are many books written 
in a very delightful vein, though with little in them, and 

I 



114 On Disagreeable People. 

that are accordingly popular. Their principle is to 
please, and not to offend ; and they succeed in both 
objects. We are contented with the deference shown to 
our feelings for the time, and grant a truce both to wit 
and wisdom. The " courteous reader " and the good- 
natured author are well matched in this instance, and 
find their account in mutual tenderness and forbearance 
to each other's infirmities. I am not sure that Walton's 
Angler is not a book of this last description — 

" That dallies with the innocence of thought, 
Like the old time." 

Hobbes and Mandeville are in the opposite extreme, and 
have met with a correspondent fate. The Taller and 
Spectator are in the golden mean, carry instruction as far 
as it can go without shocking, and give the most exquisite 
pleasure without one particle of pain. " Desire to please, 
and you will infallibly please" is a maxim equally ap- 
plicable to the study or the drawing-room. Thus, also, 
we see actors of very small pretensions, and who have 
scarce any other merit than that of being on good terms 
with themselves, and in high good humour with their 
parts (though they hardly understand a word of them), 
who are universal favourites with the audience. Others, 
who are masters of their art, and in whom no slip or flaw 
can be detected, you have no pleasure in seeing, from 
something dry, repulsive, and unconciliating in their 
manner ; and you almost hate the very mention of their 
.names, as an unavailing appeal to your candid decision 
in their favour, and as taxing you with injustice for 
refusing it. 

We may observe persons who seem to take a peculiar 
delight in the disagreeable. They catch all sorts of 
uncouth tones and gestures, the manners and dialect of 
clowns and hoydens, and aim at vulgarity as desperately 
as others ape gentility. [This is what is often understood 
by a love of low life.] They say the most unwarrantable 






On Disagreeable People. 115 

things, without meaning or feeling what they say. What 
startles or shocks other people, is to them a sport — an 
amusing excitement — a fillip to their constitutions ; and 
from the bluntness of their perceptions, and a certain 
wilfulness of spirit, not being able to enter into the refined 
and agreeable, they make a merit of despising everything 
of the kind. Masculine women, for example, are those 
who, not being distinguished by the charms and delicacy 
of the sex, affect a superiority over it by throwing aside 
all decorum. We also find another class, who continually 
do and say what they ought not, and what they do not 
intend, and who are governed almost entirely by an 
instinct of absurdity. Owing to a perversity of imagi- 
nation or irritability of nerve, the idea that a thing is 
improper acts as a provocation to it : the fear of com- 
mitting a blunder is so strong, that in their agitation 
they bolt out whatever is uppermost in their minds, before 
they are aware of the consequence. The dread of some- 
thing wrong haunts and rivets their attention to it ; and 
an uneasy, morbid apprehensiveness of temper takes away 
their self-possession, and hurries them into the very 
mistakes they are most anxious to avoid. 

If we look about us, and ask who are the agreeable 
and disagreeable people in the world, we shall see that 
it does not so much depend on their virtues or vices — 
their understanding or stupidity — as on the degree of 
pleasure or pain they seem to feel in ordinary social 
intercourse. What signify all the good qualities any one 
possesses, if he is none the better for them himself ? If 
the cause is so delightful, the effect ought to be so too. 
We enjoy a friend's society only in proportion as he is 
satisfied with ours. Even wit, however it may startle, 
is only agreeable as it is sheathed in good-humour. 
There are a kind of intellectual stammerers, who are de- 
livered of their good things with pain and effort ; and 
consequently what costs them such evident uneasiness 



316 On Disagreeable People. 

does not impart unmixed delight to the bystanders. 
There are those, on the contrary, whose sallies cost them 
nothing — who abound in a flow of pleasantry and good- 
humour ; and who float down the stream with them care- 
lessly and triumphantly — ■ 

" "Wit at the helm, and Pleasure at the prow." 

Perhaps it may be said of English wit in general, that it 
top much resembles pointed lead : after all, there is some- 
thing heavy and dull in it ! The race of small wits are 
not the least agreeable people in the world. They have 
their little joke to themselves, enjoy it, and do not set up 
any preposterous pretensions to thwart the current of our 
self-love. Toad-eating is accounted a thriving profession ; 
and a butt, according to the Spectator, is a highly useful 
member of society— as one who takes whatever is said of 
him in good part, and as necessary to conduct off the 
spleen and superfluous petulance of the company. Op- 
posed to these are the swaggering bullies — the licensed 
wits — the free-thinkers — the loud talkers, who, in the 
jockey phrase, have lost tlieir mouths, and cannot be reined 
in by any regard to decency or common-sense. The more 
obnoxious the subject, the more are they charmed with 
it, converting their want of feeling into a proof of 
superiority to vulgar prejudice and squeamish affectation. 
But there is an unseemly exposure, of the mind, as well as 
of the body. There are some objects that shock the 
sense, and cannot with propriety be mentioned : there are 
naked truths that offend the mind, and ought to be kept 
out of sight as much as possible. For human nature 
cannot bear to be too hardly pressed upon. One of these 
cynical truisms, when brought forward to the world, may 
be forgiven as a slip of the pen : a succession of them, 
denoting a deliberate purpose and malice prepense, must 
ruin any writer. Lord Byron had got into an irregular 
course of these a little before his death — seemed desirous, 



On Disagreeable People. 117 

in imitation of Mr. Shelley, to run the gauntlet of public 
obloquy — and, at the same time, wishing to screen 
himself from the censure he defied, dedicated his Gain 
to 'Sir Walter Scott — a pretty godfather to such a 
bantling ! 

Some persons are of so teazing and fidgetty a turn of 
mind, that they do not give you a moment's rest. Every- 
thing goes wrong with them. They complain of a head- 
ache or the weather. They take up a book, and lay it 
down again — venture an opinion, and retract it before 
they have half done — offer to serve you, and prevent some 
one else from doing it. If you dine with them at a 
tavern, in order to be more at your ease, the fish is too 
little done — the sauce is not the right one ; they ask for 
a sort of wine which they think is not to be had, or if 
it is 5 after some trouble, procured, do not touch ifc ; they 
give the waiter fifty contradictory orders, and are restless 
and sit on thorns the whole of dinner-time. All this is 
owing to a want of robust health, and of a strong spirit 
of enjoyment: it is a fastidious habit of mind, produced 
by a valetudinary habit of body : they are out of sorts 
with everything, and of course their ill-humour and 
captiousness communicates itself to you, who are as little 
delighted with them as they are with other things. 
Another sort of people, equally objectionable with this 
helpless class, who are disconcerted by a shower of rain 
or stopped by an insect's wing, are those who, in the 
opposite spirit, will have everything their own way, and 
carry all before them— who cannot brook the slightest 
shadow of opposition — who are always in the heat of 
an argument — who knit their brows and clench their 
teeth in some speculative discussion, as if they were 
engaged in a personal quarrel — and who, though suc- 
cessful over almost every competitor, seem still to resent 
the very offer of resistance to their supposed authority, 
and are as angry as if they had sustained some pre 



118 On Disagreeable People. 

meditated injury. There is an impatience of temper 
and an intolerance of opinion in this that conciliates 
neither our affection nor esteem. To such persons 
nothing appears of any moment but the indulgence of a 
domineering intellectual superiority to the disregard and 
discomfiture of their own and every body else's comfort. 
Mounted on an abstract proposition, they trample on 
every courtesy and decency of behaviour ; and though, 
perhaps, they do not intend the gross personalities they 
are guilty of, yet they cannot be acquitted of a want of 
due consideration for others, and of an intolerable egotism 
in the support of truth and justice. You may hear one 
of these Quixotic declaimers pleading the cause of hu- 
manity in a voice of thunder, or expatiating on the beauty 
of a Gluido with features distorted with rage and scorn. 
This is not a very amiable or edifying spectacle, 

There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are 
they ? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want 
of understanding or good-nature, of entertaining or useful 
qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they 
have probably many points of attraction ; but they have 
one that neutralises all these — they care nothing about 
you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you 
think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach ; 
and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they 
can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, 
nor indifference, nor absence of mind ; but they are intent 
solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of 
the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in 
society as in a solitude ; and, however their brain works, 
their pulse beats neither faster nor slower for the common 
accidents of life. There is, therefore, something cold 
and repulsive in the air that is about them — like that of 
marble. In a word, they are modern philosophers; and 
the modern philosopher is what the pedant was of old — 
a being who lives in a world of his own, and has no 



On Disagreeable People. 119 

correspondence with this. It is not that such persons 
have not done you services — you acknowledge it ; it is 
not that they have said severe things of you — you submit 
to it as a necessary evil : but it is the cool manner in 
which the whole is done that annoys you — the speculating 
upon you, as if you were nobody — the regarding you, 
with a view to an experiment in cor pore vili — the principle 
of dissection — the determination to spare no blemishes — 
to cut you down to your real standard ; — in short, the 
utter absence of the partiality of friendship, the blind 
enthusiasm of affection, or the delicacy of common 
decency, that whether they ' 4 hew you as a carcase fit 
for hounds, or carve you as a dish fit for the gods," the 
operation on your feelings and your sense of obligation 
is just the same ; and, whether they are demons or angels 
in themselves, you wish them equally at the devil ! 

Other persons of worth and sense give way to mere 
violence of temperament (with which the understanding 
has nothing to do) — are burnt up with a perpetual fury 
— repel and throw you to a distance by their restless, 
whirling motion — so that you dare not go near them, or 
feel as uneasy in their company as if you stood on the 
edge of a volcano. They have their tempora mollia fandi ; 
but then what a stir may you not expect the next moment ! 
Nothing is less inviting or less comfortable than this state 
of uncertainty and apprehension. Then they are those 
who never approach you without the most alarming advice 
or information, telling you that you are in a dying way, 
or that your affairs are on the point of ruin, by way of 
disburthening their consciences ; and others, who give you 
to understand much the same thing as a good joke, out 
of sheer impertinence, constitutional vivacity, and want 
of something to say. All these, it must be confessed, are 
disagreeable people ; and you repay their over-anxiety or 
total forgetfulness of you, by a determination to cut them 
as speedily as possible. We meet with instances of persons 



120 On Disagreeable People. 

who overpower you by a sort of boisterous mirth, and rude 
animal spirits, with whose ordinary state of excitement it 
is as impossible to keep up as with that of any one really 
intoxicated ; and with others who seem scarce alive — who 
take no pleasure or interest in anything — who are born to 
exemplify the maxim, 

" Not to admire is all the art I know 
To make men happy, or to keep them so," — 

and whose mawkish insensibility or sullen scorn are 
equally annoying. In general, all people brought up in 
remote country places, where life is crude and harsh — all 
sectaries — all partisans of a losing cause, are discontented 
and disagreeable. Commend me above all to the West- 
minster School of Eeform, whose blood runs as cold in 
their veins as the torpedo's, and whose touch jars like it. 
Catholics are, upon the whole, more amiable than 
Protestants — foreigners than English people. Among 
ourselves, the Scotch, as a nation, are particulary disagree- 
able. They hate every appearance of comfort themselves, 
and refuse it to others. Their climate, their religion, 
and their habits are equally averse to pleasure. Their 
manners are either distinguished by a fawning sycophancy 
(to gain their own ends, and conceal their natural defects), 
that makes one sick ; or by a morose, unbending callous- 
ness, that makes one shudder. I had forgot to mention 
two other descriptions of persons who fall under the scope 
of this essay : — those who take up a subject, and run on 
with it interminably, without knowing whether their 
hearers care one word about it, or in the least minding 
what reception their oratory meets with — these are 
pretty generally voted bores (mostly German ones) ; — 
and others, who may be designated as practical paradox- 
mongers — who discard the " milk of human kindness," 
and an attention to common observances, from all their 
actions, as effeminate and puling — who wear an out-of-the 



On Disagreeable People. 121 

way hat as a mark of superior understanding, and carry 
home a handkerchief full of mushrooms in the top of it 
as an original discovery — who give you craw-fish for 
supper instead of lobsters ; seek their company in 
a garret, and over a gin-bottle, to avoid the imputation of 
affecting genteel society ; and discard their friends after a 
term of years, and warn others against them, as being 
honest fellows, which is thought a vulgar prejudice. This 
is carrying the harsh and repulsive even beyond the 
disagreeable — to the hateful. Such persons are generally 
people of commonplace understandings, obtuse feelings, 
and inordinate vanity. They are formidable if they get 
you in their power— otherwise, they are only to be laughed 
at. 

There are a vast number who are disagreeable from 
meanness of spirit, downright insolence, from slovenliness 
of dress or disgusting tricks, from folly or ignorance ; but 
these causes are positive moral or physical defects, and I 
only meant to speak of that repulsiveness of manners which 
arises from want of tact and sympathy with others. So 
far of friendship : a word, if I durst, of love. Gallantry 
to women (the sure road to their favour) is nothing but 
the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and 
wishes — a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence 
in yourself, as being able to contribute towards it. The 
slightest indifference with regard to them, or distrust of 
yourself, are equally fatal. The amiable is the voluptuous 
in looks, manner, or words. No face that exhibits this 
kind of expression — whether lively or serious, obvious or 
suppressed, will be thought ugly — no address, awkward 
— no lover who approaches every women he meets as his 
mistress, will be unsuccessful. Diffidence and awkward- 
ness are the two antidotes to love. 

To please universally, we must be pleased with our- 
selves and others. There should be a tinge of the coxcomb, 
an oil of self-complacency, an anticipation of success — 



122 On Disagreeable People. 

there should be no gloom, no moroseness, no shyness — 
in short, there should be very little of the Englishman, 
and a good deal of the Frenchman. But though, I believe, 
this is the receipt, we are none the nearer making use of 
it. It is impossible for those who are naturally disagree- 
able ever to become otherwise. This is some consolation, 
as it may save a world of useless pains and anxiety. 
" Desire to please, and you will infallibly please" is a true 
maxim ; but it does not follow that it is in the power of 
all to practise it. A vain man, who thinks he is 
endeavouring to please, is only endeavouring to shine, 
and is still farther from the mark. An irritable man, 
who puts a check upon himself, only grows dull, and 
loses spirit to be anything. Good temper and a happy 
turn of mind (which are the indispensable requisites) can 
no more be commanded than good health or good looks ; 
and though the plain and sickly need not distort their 
features, and may abstain from excess, this is all they can 
do. The utmost a disagreeable person can do is to hope, 
by care and study, to become less disagreeable than he is, 
and to pass unnoticed in society. With this negative 
character he should be contented, and may build his fame 
and happiness on other things. 

I will conclude with a description of men who neither 
please nor aspire to please anybody, and who can come 
in nowhere so properly as at the fag-end of an essay : — I 
mean that class of discontented but amusing persons, who 
are infatuated with their own ill success, and reduced to 
despair by a lucky turn in their favour. While all goes 
well, they are like fish out of water. They have no 
reliance on or sympathy with their good fortune, and 
look upon it as a momentary delusion. Let a doubt be 
thrown on the question, and they begin to be full of lively 
apprehensions again : let all their hopes vanish, and they 
feel themselves on firm ground once more. From want of 
spirit, or from habit, their imaginations cannot rise above 



On Knoidedge of the World. 123 

the low ground of humility — cannot reflect the gay, flaunt- 
ing tints of the fancy — flag and droop into despondency 
— and can neither indulge the expectation, nor employ the 
means of success. Even when it is within their reach, 
they dare not lay hands upon it ; and shrink from unlooked 
for bursts of prosperity, as something of which they are 
both ashamed and unworthy. The class of croakers 
here spoken of are less delighted with other people's 
misfortunes than with their own. Their neighbours may 
have some pretensions — they have none. Querulous com- 
plaints and anticipations of discomfort are the food on 
which they live ; and they at last acquire a passion for 
that which is the favourite theme of their thoughts, and 
can no more do without it than without the pinch of snuff 
with which they season their conversation, and enliven 
the pauses of their daily prognostics. 



On Knoidedge of the World. 

"Who shall go about to cozen fortune, or wear the badge of 
honour without the stamp of merit ?" 

A knowledge of the world is generally supposed to be 
the fruit of experience and observation, or of a various, 
practical acquaintance with men and things. On the 
contrary, it appears to me to be a kind of instinct, arising 
out of a peculiar construction and turn of mind. Some 
persons display this knowledge at their first outset in 
life : others, with all their opportunities and dear-bought 
lessons, never acquire it to the end of their career. In 
fact, a knowledge of the world only means a knowledge 
of our own interest ; it is nothing but a species of selfish- 
ness or ramification of the law of self-preservation. There 
may be said to be two classes of people in the world, 
which remain for ever distinct : those who consider things 
in the abstract, or with a reference to truth, and those 
who consider them only with a reference to themselves, or 



124 On Knowledge of the World. 

to the main chance. The first, whatever may be their 
acquirements or discoveries, wander through life in a sort 
of absence of mind, or comparative state of sleep-walking : 
the last, though their attention is riveted to a single 
point of view, are always on the alert, know perfectly 
well what they are about, and calculate with the greatest 
nicety the effect which their words or actions will have 
on others. They do not trouble themselves about the 
arguments on any subject ; they know the opinion enter- 
tained on it, and that is enough for them to regulate 
themselves by ; the rest they regard as quite Utopian, and 
foreign to the purpose. " Subtle as the fox for prey, like 
warlike as the wolf for what they eat," they leave mere 
speculative points to those who, from some unaccountable 
bias or caprice, take an interest in what does not personally 
concern them, and make good the old saying, that " the 
children of the world are wiser in their generation than 
the children of the light !" 

The man of the world is to the man of science very 
much what the chamelion is to the armadillo : the one 
takes its hue from every surrounding object, and is un- 
distinguishable from them ; the other is shut up in a 
formal crust of knowledge, and clad in an armour of 
proof, from which the shaft of ridicule or the edge of 
disappointment falls equally pointless. It is no un- 
common case to see a person come into a room, which ho 
enters awkwardly enough, and has nothing in his dress or 
appearance to recommend him, but after the first em- 
barrassments are over, sits down, takes his share in the 
conversation, in which he acquits himself creditably, 
shows sense, reading, and shrewdness, expresses himself 
with point, articulates distinctly, when he blunders on 
some topic which he might see is disagreeable, but per- 
sists in it the more as he finds others shrink from it; 
mentions a book of which you have not heard, and 
perhaps do not wish to hear, and he therefore thinks 



On Knowledge of the World. 125 

himself bound to favour you with the contents ; gets into 
an argument with one, proses on with another on a 
subject in which his hearer has no interest; and when he 

goes away, people remark, " What a pity that Mr. 

has not more knowledge of the world, and has so little 
skill in adapting himself to the tone and manners of 
society!" But will time and habit cure him of this 
defect? Never. He wants a certain tact, he has not a 
voluntary power over his ideas, but is like a person 
reading out of a book, or who can only pour out the 
budget of knowledge with which his brain is crammed in 
all places and companies alike. If you attempt to divert 
his attention from the general subject to the persons he is 
addressing, you puzzle and stop him quite. He is a mere 
conversing automaton. He has not the sense of personality 
— the faculty of perceiving the effect (as well as the 
grounds) of his opinions : and how then should failure 
or mortification give ii him? It must be a painful re- 
flection, and he must be glad to turn from it ; or. after 
a few reluctant and unsuccessful efforts to correct his 
errors, he will try to forget or harden himself in them. 
Finding that he makes so slow and imperceptible a 
progress in amending his faults, he will take his swing 
in the opposite direction, will triumph and revel in his 
supposed excellences, will launch out into the wide, 
untrammelled field of abstract speculation, and silence 
envious sneers and petty cavils by force of argument and 
dint of importunity. You will find him the same cha- 
racter at sixty that he was at thirty ; or, should time 
soften down some of his asj)erities, and tire him of his 
absurdities as he has tired others, nothing will transform 
him into a man of the world, and he will die in a garret, 
or a paltry second-floor, from not having been able to 
acquire the art " to see himself as others see him," or to 
dress his opinions, looks, and actions in the smiles and 
approbation of the world. On the other hand, take a 



126 On Knowledge of the World. 

youth from the same town (perhaps a school-fellow, and 
the dunce of the neighbourhood) ; he has " no figures, nor 
no fantasies which busy thought draws in the brain of 
men," no preconceived notions by which he must square 
his conduct or his conversation, no dogma to maintain in 
the teeth of opposition, no Shibboleth to which he must 
force others to subscribe ; the progress of science or the 
good of his fellow-creatures are things about which he 
has not the remotest conception, or the smallest particle 
of anxiety — 

u His soul proud science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky way ;" 

all that he sees or attends to is the immediate path before 
him, or what can encourage or lend him a helping hand 
through it ; his mind is a complete blank, on which the 
world may write its maxims and customs in what cha- 
racters it pleases ; he has only to study its humours, 
flatter its prejudices, and take advantage of its foibles ; 
while walking the streets he is not taken up with solving 
an abstruse problem, but with considering his own ap- 
pearance and that of others ; instead of contradicting a 
patron, assents to all he hears ; and in every proposition 
that comes before him asks himself only what he can get 
by it, and whether it will make him friends or enemies : 
such a one is said to possess great penetration and know- 
ledge of the world, understands his place in society, gets 
on in it, rises from the counter to the counting-house, 
from the dependant to be a partner, amasses a fortune, 
gains in size and respectability as his affairs prosper, has 
his town and country house, and ends with buying up 
half the estates in his native county ! 

The great secret of a knowledge of the world, then, 
consists in a subserviency to the will of others, and the 
primary motive to this attention is a mechanical and 
watchful perception of our own interest. It is not an art 
that requires a long course of study, the difficulty is in 



On Knowledge of the World. 127 

putting one's-self apprentice to it. It does not surely 
imply any very laborious or profound inquiry into the 
distinctions of truth or falsehood to be able to assent to 
whatever one hears ; nor any great refinement of moral 
feeling to approve of whatever has custom, power, or 
interest on its side. The only question is, " Who is 
willing to do so?" — and the answer is, those who have 
no other faculties or pretensions, either to stand in the 
way of, or to assist their progress through life. Those 
are slow to wear the livery of the world who have any 
independent resources of their own. It is not that the 
philosopher, or the man of genius, does not see and know 
all this, that he is not constantly and forcibly reminded 
of it by his own failure or the success of others, but he 
cannot stoop to practise it. He has a different scale of 
excellence and mould of ambition, which have nothing in 
common with current maxims and time-serving calcula- 
tions. He is a moral and intellectual egotist, not a mere 
worldly-minded one. In youth, he has sanguine hopes 
and brilliant dreams, which he cannot sacrifice for sordid 
realities — as he advances farther in life, habit and pride 
forbid his turning back. He cannot bring himself to 
give up his best-grounded convictions to a blockhead, or 
his conscientious principles to a knave, though he might 
make his fortune by so doing. The rule holds good here, 
as well as in another sense — " What shall it profit a man 
if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?" If 
his convictions and principles had been less strong, they 
would have yielded long ago to the suggestions of his 
interest, and he would have relapsed into the man of the 
world, or rather he would never have had the temptation 
or capacity to be anything else. One thing that keeps 
men honest, as well as that confirms them knaves, is their 
incapacity to do any better for themselves than nature 
has done for them. One person can with difficulty speak 
the truth, as another lies with a very ill grace. After 



128 On Knowledge of the World. 

repeated awkward attempts to change characters, they 
each very properly fall back into their old jog-trot path, 
as best suited to their genius and habits. 

There are individuals who make themselves and every 
one else uncomfortable by trying to be agreeable, and 
who are only to be endured in their natural characters of 
blunt, plain-spoken people. Many a man would have 
turned rogue if he had known how. Non ex qiwtibet 
ligno fit Mercurius. The modest man cannot be impudent 
if he w r ould. The man of sense cannot play the fool to 
advantage. It is not the mere resolution to act a part 
that will enable us to do it, without a natural genius and 
fitness for it. Some men are born to be valets, as others 
are to be courtiers. There is the climbing genus in man 
as well as in plants. It is sometimes made a wonder how 
men of " no mark or likelihood " frequently rise to court- 
preferment, and make their way against all competition. 
That is the very reason. They present no tangible point ; 
they offend no feeling of self-importance. They are a 
perfect unresisting medium of patronage and favour. 
They aspire through servility ; they repose in insigni- 
ficance. A man of talent or pretension in the same 
circumstances would be kicked out in a week. A look 
that implied a doubt, a hint that suggested a difference of 
opinion, would be fatal. It is of no use, in parleying 
with absolute power, to dissemble, to suppress : there 
must be no feelings or opinions to dissemble or suppress. 
The artifice of the dependant is not a match for the 
jealousy of the patron : " The soul must be subdued to 
the very quality of its lord." Where all is annihilated in 
the presence of the Sovereign, is it astonishing that 
nothings should succeed? Ciphers are as necessary in 
courts as eunuchs in seraglios. 

I do not think Mr. Cobbett would succeed in an in- 
terview with the Prince [Eegent]. Bub Doddington said, 
" He would not justify before his Sovereign, even where 



On Knowledge of the World. 129 

his own character was at stake. I am afraid we could 
hardly reckon upon the same forbearance in Mr. Cobbett 
where his country's welfare was at stake, and where he 
had an opportunity of vindicating it. He might have 
a great deal of reason on his side ; but he might forget, 
or seem to forget, that as the King is above the law, 
he is also above reason. Eeason is but a suppliant at 
the foot of thrones, and waits for their approval or rebuke. 
Solus populi suprema lex — may be a truism anywhere else. 
If reason dares to approach them at all, it must be in 
the shape of deference and humility, not of headstrong 
importunity and self-will. Instead of breathless awe, of 
mild intreaty, of humble remonstrance, it is Mr. Cobbett 
who, upon very slight encouragement, would give the 
law, and the Monarch who must kiss the rod. The 
reformer would be too full of his own opinion to allow an 
option even to Majesty, and the affair would have the 
same ending as that of the old ballad — 

" Then the Queen, overhearing what Betty did say, 
Would send Mr. Roper to take her away." 

As I have brought Mr. Cobbett in here by the neck 
and shoulders, I may add, that I do not think he belongs 
properly to the class, either of philosophical speculators, 
or men of the world. He is a political humorist. He is 
too much taken up with himself either to attend to right 
reason or to judge correctly of what passes around him. 
He mistakes strength of purpose and passion, not only 
for truth, but for success. Because he can give fifty good 
reasons for a thing, he thinks it not only ought to be, but 
must be. Because he is swayed so entirely by his wishes 
and humours, he believes others will be ready to give up 
their prejudices, interests, and resentments to oblige him. 
He persuades himself that he is the fittest person to repre- 
sent Westminster in parliament, and he considers this 
point (once proved) tantamount to his return. He knows 
no more of the disposition or sentiments of the people of 

K 



130 On Knowledge of the World. 

Westminster than of the inhabitants of the moon (except 
from what he himself chooses to say or write of them), 
and it is this want of sympathy which, as much as any- 
thing, prevents his being chosen. The exclusive force 
and bigotry of his opinions deprives them of half their 
influence and effect, by allowing no toleration to others, 
and consequently setting them against him. 

Mr. Cobbett seemed disappointed, at one time, at not 
succeeding in the character of a legacy-hunter. Why, a 
person, to succeed in this character, ought to be a mere 
skin or bag to hold money, a place to deposit it in, a 
shadow, a deputy, a trustee who keeps it for the original 
owner — so that the transfer is barely nominal, and who, if 
the donor were to return from the other world, would 
modestly yield it up — one who has no personal identity of 
his own, no will to encroach upon or dispose of it, other- 
wise than his patron would wish after his death — not a 
hairbrained egotist, a dashing adventurer, to squander, 
hector, and flourish away with it in wild schemes and 
ruinous experiments, every one of them at variance with 
the opinions of the testator, in new methods of turnip- 
hoeing ; in speculations in madder — this would be to tear 
his soul from his body twice over — 

" His patron's ghost from Limbo lake the while 
Sees this which more damnation doth upon him pile !" 

Mr. Cobbett complained, that in his last interview with 
Baron Maseres, that gentleman was in his dotage, and 
that his reverend legatee sat at the bottom of the table, 
cutting a poor figure, and not contradicting a word the 
Baron said. No doubt, as he has put this in print in the 
exuberance of his dissatisfaction, he let both gentlemen see 
pretty plainly what he thought of them, and fancied that 
this expression of his contempt, as it gratified him, was 
the way to ensure the good will of the one to make over 
his whole estate, or the good word of the other to let him 
go snacks. This is a new way of being quits with one's 



On Knowledge of the World. 131 

benefactors, and an egregious quid pro quo. If Baron 
Maseres had left Mr. Cobbett 200,000/. it must have been 
not to write his epitaph, or visit him in his last moments ! 
A gossiping chambermaid who only smiles and assents 
when her mistress wishes to talk, or an ignorant country- 
clown who stands with his hat off when he has a favour to 
ask of the squire (and if he is wise, at all other times), 
knows more of the matter. A knowledge of mankind is 
little more than Sir Pertinax's instinct of bowing, or of 
" never standing upright in the presence of a great man," 
or of that great blockhead, the world. It is not a percep- 
tion of truth, but a sense of power, and an instant deter- 
mination of the will to submit to it. It is, therefore, less 
an intellectual acquirement than a natural disposition. It 
is on this account that I think both cunning and wisdom 
are a sort of original endowments, or attain maturity much 
earlier than is supposed, from their being moral qualities, 
and having their seat in the heart rather than the head. 
The difference depends on the manner of seeing things. 
The one is a selfish, the other is a disinterested view of 
nature. The one is the clear open look of integrity, the 
other is a contracted and blear-eyed obliquity of mental 
vision. If any one has but the courage and honesty to 
look at an object as it is in itself, or divested of prejudice, 
fear, and favour, he will be sure to see it pretty right ; as 
he who regards it through the refractions of opinion and 
fashion, will be sure to see it distorted and falsified, 
however the error may redound to his own advantage. 
Certainly, he who makes the universe tributary to his 
convenience, and subjects all his impressions of what is 
right or wrong, true or false, black or white, round or 
square, to the standard and maxims of the world, who 
never utters a proposition but he fancies a patron close at 
his elbow who overhears him, who is even afraid, in pri- 
vate, to suffer an honest conviction to rise in his mind, 
lest it should mount to his lips, get wind, and ruin his 



132 On Knowledge of the World. 

prospects in life, ought to gain something in exchange for 
the restraint and force put upon his thoughts and faculties : 
on the contrary, he who is confined by no such petty arid 
debasing trammels, whose comprehension of mind is " in 
large heart enclosed," finds his inquiries and his views 
expand in a degree commensurate with the universe around 
him ; makes truth welcome wherever he meets her, and 
receives her cordial embrace in return. To see things 
divested of passion and interest, is to see them with the 
eye of history and philosophy. It is easy to judge right, 
or at least to come to a mutual understanding in matters 
of history, and abstract morality. Why, then, is it so 
difficult to arrive at the same calm certainty in actual 
life ? Because the passions and interests are concerned, 
and it requires so much more candour, love of truth, and 
independence of spirit to encounter " the world and its 
dread laugh," to throw aside every sinister consideration, 
and grapple with the plain merits of the case.* To be 
wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and 
strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the 
truth. Perhaps the courage may be also owing to the 
strength ; but both go together, and are natural, and not 
acquired. Do we not see in fables the force of the moral 
principle in detecting the truth? The only effect of fables 
is, by making inanimate or irrational things actors in the 
scene, to remove the case completely from our own sphere, 
to take our self-love off its guard, to simplify the question ; 
and yet the result of this obvious appeal is allowed to be 
universal and irresistible. Is not this another example 
that '• the heart of man is deceitful above all things ;" or, 
that it is less our incapacity to distinguish what is right r 
than our secret determination to adhere to what is wrong, 
that prevents our discriminating one from the other? It 
is not that great and useful truths are not manifest and 
discernible in themselves ; but little, dirty objects get 
between them and us, and from being near and gross, 



On Knowledge of the World. 133 

hide the lofty and distant. The first business of the 
patriot and the philanthropist is to overleap this barrier, 
to rise out of this material dross. Indignation, contempt 
of the base and grovelling, makes the philosopher no less 
than the poet ; and it is the power of looking beyond self 
that enables each to inculcate moral truth and nobleness 
of sentiment, the one by general precepts, the other by 
individual example. 

I have no quarrel with men of the world, mere much- 
worms ; every one after his fashion, " as the flesh and 
fortune shall serve ;" but I confess I have a little distaste 
to those who, having set out as loud and vaunting enthusi- 
asts, have turned aside to " tread the primrose path of 
dalliance," and to revile those who did not choose to 
follow so edifying an example. The candid brow and 
elastic spring of youth may be exchanged for the wrinkles 
and crookedness of age ; but at least we should retain 
something of the erectness and openness of our first un- 
biassed thoughts. I cannot understand how any degree 
of egotism can dispense with the consciousness of personal 
identity. As we advance farther in life, we are naturally 
inclined to revert in imagination to its commencement ; 
but what can those dwell upon there who find only feelings 
that they despise, and opinions that they have abjured ? 

" If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from 
thee :" but the operation is a painful one, and the body 
remains after it only a mutilated fragment. Generally, 
those who are cut off from this resource in former recol- 
lections, make up for it (as well as they can) by an exag- 
gerated and anxious fondness for their late-espoused con- 
victions — a thing unsightly and indecent. Why does he 1 
who at one time despises " the little Chapel Bell," after- 
wards write " the Book of the Church ?" The one is not 
an atonement for the other ; each shows only a juvenile 
or a superannuated precocity of judgment. It is uniting 

1 Southev. — Ed. 



134 On Knowledge of the World. 

Camille-Desmoulins and Camille-Jourdan, (Jourdan of 
the Chimes) in one character. I should like, not out of 
malice, but from curiosity, to see Mr. Southey re-write the 
beautiful poem on "his own miniature-picture, when he 
was two years old," and see what he would substitute for 
the lines — 

u And it was thought 

That thou shouldst tread preferment's flowery path, 

Young Eobert !" 

There must here, I think, be hiatus in manuscriptis : 
the verse must halt a little ! The laureate and his friends 
say that they are still labouring in the same design as 
ever, correcting the outlines and filling up the unfinished 
sketch of their early opinions. They seem rather to have 
quite blotted them out, and to have taken a fresh canvas 
to begin another, and no less extravagant caricature. 
Or their new and old theories remind one of those heads 
in picture-dealers' shops, where one half of the face is 
thoroughly cleaned and repaired, and the other left 
covered with stains and dirt, to show the necessity of the 
picture-scourer's art : the transition offends the sight. 

It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as 
they grow older, any more than they grow stronger or 
healthier or honester. They may, in one sense, imbibe 
a greater portion of worldly wisdom, and have their 
romantic flights tamed to the level of every day's practice 
and experience ; but perhaps it would be better if some of 
the extravagance and enthusiasm of youth could be infused 
into the latter, instead of being absorbed (perforce) in 
that sink of pride, envy, selfishness, ignorance, conceit, 
prejudice, and hypocrisy. One thing is certain, that this 
is the present course of events, and that if the individual 
grows wiser as he gains experience, the world does not, 
and that the tardy penitent who is treading back his steps, 
may meet the world advancing as he is retreating, and 
adopting more and more of the genuine impulses and 



On Knowledge of the World. 135 

disinterested views of youth into its creed. It is, indeed, 
only by conforming to some such original and unsophis- 
ticated standard, that it can acquire either soundness or 
consistency. The appeal is a fair one, from the bad 
habits of society to the unprejudiced aspirations and 
impressions of human nature. 

It seems, in truth, a hard case to have all the world 
against us, and to require uncommon fortitude (not to say 
presumption) to stand out single against such a host. 
The bare suggestion must " give us pause," and has no 
doubt overturned many an honest conviction. The opinion 
of the world (as it pompously entitles itself), if it means 
anything more than a set of local and party prejudices, 
with which only our interest, not truth, is concerned, is a 
shadow, a bugbear, and a contradiction in terms. Saving 
all the world against us, is a phrase without a meaning ; 
for in those points in which all the world agree, no one 
differs from the world. If all the world were of the same 
way of thinking, and always kept in the same mind, it 
would certainly be a little staggering to have them against 
you. But however widely and angrily they may differ 
from you, they differ quite as much from one another, and 
even from themselves. What is gospel at one moment, is 
heresy the next: different countries and climates have 
different notions of things. When you are put on your 
trial, therefore, for impugning the public opinion, you 
may always subpoena this great body against itself. For 
example, I have been twitted for somewhere calling Tom 
Paine a great writer, and no doubt his reputation at 
present "does somewhat smack:" yet in 1792 he was so 
great, or so popular an author, and so much read and 
admired by numbers who would not now mention his 
name, that the Government was obliged to suspend the 
Constitution, and to go to war to counteract the effects of 
his popularity. His extreme popularity was then the 
cause (by a common and vulgar reaction) of his extreme 



136 On Knowledge of the World. 

obnoxiousness. If the opinion of the world, then, con- 
tradicts itself, why may not I contradict it, or choose at 
what time, and to what extent I will agree with it? I 
have been accused of abusing dissenters, and saying that 
sectaries, in general, are dry and suspicious ; and I 
believe that all the world will say the same thing except 
themselves. I have said that the church people are proud 
and overbearing, which has given them umbrage, though 
in this I have all the sectaries on my side. I have 
laughed at the Methodists, 1 and for this I have been 
accused of glancing at religion : yet who but a Methodist 
does not laugh at the Methodists as well as myself? But 
I also laugh at those who laugh at them. I have pointed 
out by turns the weak sides and foibles of different sects 
and parties, and they themselves maintain that they 
respectively are perfect and infallible : and this is what is 
called having all the world against me. I have inveighed 
all my life against the insolence of the Tories, and for 
this I have the authority both of Whigs and Eadicals ; 
but then I have occasionally spoken against the indecision 
of the Whigs, and the extravagance of the Eadicals, and 
thus have brought all three on my back, though two out 
of the three regularly agree with all I say of the third 
party. Poets do not approve of what I have said of their 
turning prose-writers ; nor do the politicians approve of 
my tolerating the fooleries of the fanciful tribe at all : so 
they make common cause to damn me between them. 
People never excuse the drawback from themselves, nor 
the concessions to an adversary : such is the justice and 
candour of mankind ! Mr. Wordsworth is not satisfied 
with the praise I have heaped upon himself, 2 and still 
less, that 1 have allowed Mr. Moore to be a poet at all. 3 

1 See more particularly a paper in the Bound Table, edit. 1817, 
i, 1G3, On the Causes of Methodism. — Ed. 

2 In the Lectures on the English Poets, 1818, and the Spirit of the 
Age, 1825.— Ed. 3 Spirit of the Age, 1825.— Ed. 



On Knowledge of the World. 137 

I do not think I have ever set my face against the 
popular idols of the day ; I have been among the 
foremost in crying up Mrs. Siddons, Kean, Sir Walter 
Scott, Madame Pasta, and others ; and as to the great 
names of former times, my admiration has been lavish, 
and sometimes almost mawkish. I have dissented, it is 
true, in one or two instances ; but that only shows that I 
judge for myself, not that I make a point of contradicting 
the general taste. I have been more to blame in trying 
to push certain Illustrious Obscure into notice : — they 
have not forgiven the obligation, nor the world the tacit 
reproach. As to my personalities, they might quite as 
well be termed impersonalities. I am so intent on the 
abstract proposition and its elucidation, that I regard 
everything else of very subordinate consequence : my 
friends, 1 conceive, will not refuse to contribute to so 
laudable an undertaking, and my enemies must ! I have 
found fault with the French, I have found fault with the 
English; and pray, do they not find great, mutual, and 
just fault with one another ? It may seem a great piece 
of arrogance in any one, to set up his individual and 
private judgment against that of ten millions of people; 
but cross the channel, and you will have thirty millions 
on your side. Even should the thirty millions come over 
to the opinions of the ten (a thing that may happen to- 
morrow), still one need not despair. I remember my old 
friend Peter Finnerty laughing very heartily at something 
I had written about the Scotch, but it was followed up by 
a sketch of the Irish, on which he closed the book, looked 
grave, and said he disapproved entirely of all national 
reflections. Thus you have all the world on your side, 
except the party concerned. What any set of people 
think or say of themselves is hardly a rule for others : 
yet, if you do not attach yourself to some one set of 
people and principles, and stick to them through thick 
and thin, instead of giving your opinion fairly and fully 



138 On Knowledge of the World. 

all round, you must expect to have all the world against 
you, for no other reason than because you express sin- 
cerely, and for their good, not only what they say of 
others, but what is said of themselves, which they would 
fain keep a profound secret, and prevent the divulging of 
under the severest pains and penalties, When I told 
Jeffrey that I had composed a work in which I had "in 
some sort handled" about a score of leading characters, 
he said, " Then you will have one man against you, and 
the remaining nineteen for you ! ' 1 I have not found it 
so. In fact, these persons would agree pretty nearly to 
all that I say, and allow that, in nineteen points out of 
twenty, I am right ; but the twentieth, that relates to 
some imperfection of their own, weighs down all the rest, 
and produces an unanimous verdict against the author. 
There is but one thing in which the world agree, a certain 
bigoted blindness, and conventional hypocrisy, without 
which, according to Mandeville (that is, if they really 
spoke what they thought and knew of one another), they 
would fall to cutting each other's throats immediately. 

We find the same contrariety and fluctuation of opinion 
in different ages, as well as countries and classes. For 
about a thousand years, during "the high and palmy 
state " of the Eomish hierarchy, it was agreed (nemine 
contradicente) that two and two made five : afterwards, for 
above a century, there was great battling and controversy 
to prove that they made four and a half; then, for a 
century more, it was thought a great stride taken to come 
down to four and a quarter ; and, perhaps, in another 
century or two, it will be discovered for a wonder that two 
and two actually make four ! It is said, that this slow 
advance and perpetual interposition of impediments is 
a salutary check to the rashness of innovation, and to 
hazardous experiments. At least, it is a very effectual one, 

1 The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits. London, 1825, 
8vo. Frequently reprinted. — Ed. 



On Knowledge of the World. 139 

amounting almost to a prohibition. One age is employed 
in building up an absurdity, and the next exhausts all its 
wit and learning, zeal and fury, in battering it down, so 
that at the end of two generations you come to the point 
where you set out, and have to begin again. These heats 
and disputes about external points of faith may be things 
of no consequence, since under all the variations of form 
or doctrine the essentials of practice remain the same. It 
does not seem so ; at any rate, the non-essentials appear 
to excite all the interest, and " keep this dreadful pudder 
o'er our heads ; " and when the dogma is once stripped of 
mystery and intolerance, and reduced to common sense, no 
one appears to take any furthur notice of it. 

The appeal, then, to the authority of the world, chiefly 
resolves itself into the old proverb, that " when you are at 
Eome you must do as those at Eome do ; " that is, it is a 
shifting circle of local prejudices and gratuitous assump- 
tions, a successful conformity to which is best insured by 
a negation of all other qualities that might interfere with 
it : solid reason and virtue are out of the question. But 
it may be insisted, that there are qualities of a more prac- 
tical order that may greatly contribute to and facilitate our 
advancement in life, such as presence of mind, convivial 
talents, insight into character, thorough acquaintance with 
the profounder principles and secret springs of society, and 
so forth : I do not deny that all this may be of advantage 
in extraordinary cases, and often abridge difficulties, but I 
do not think that it is either necessary or generally useful. 
For instance, habitual caution and reserve is a surer 
resource than presence of mind, or quick-witted readiness 
of expedient, which, though it gets men out of scrapes, as 
often leads them into them by begetting a false confidence. 
Persons of agreeable and lively talents often find to their 
cost that one indiscretion procures them more enemies 
then ten agreeable sallies do friends. A too great penetra- 
tion into character is less desirable than a certain power 



140 On Knowledge of the World. 

of hoodwinking ourselves to their defects, unless the 
former is accompanied with a profound hypocrisy, which 
is also liable to detection and discomfiture : and as to 
general maxims and principles of worldly knowledge, I 
conceive that an instinctive sympathy with them is much 
more profitable than their incautious discovery and formal 
announcement. Thus the politic rule, " When a great 
wheel goes up a hill, cling fast to it ; when a great wheel 
runs down a hill, let go your hold of it, 5 ' may be useful as 
a hint or warning to the shyness of fidelity of an English- 
man ; a North- Briton feels its truth instinctively, and acts 
upon it unconsciously. When it is observed in the History 
of a Foundling} that "Mr. Alworthy had done so many 
charitable actions that he had made enemies of the whole 
parish," the sarcasm is the dictate of a generous indigna- 
tion at ingratitude rather than a covert apology for selfish 
niggardliness. Misanthropic reflections have their source 
in philanthropic sentiments ; the real despiser of the world 
keeps up appearances with it, and is at pains to varnish 
over its vices and follies, even to himself, lest his secret 
should be betrayed, and do him an injury. Those who see 
completely into the world begin to play tricks with it, and 
over-reach themselves by being too knowing : it is even 
possible to out-cant it, and get laughed at that way. Field- 
ing knew something of the world, yet he did not make a 
fortune. Sir Walter Scott has twice made a fortune by 
descriptions of nature and character, and has twice lost it 
by the fondness for speculative gains. Wherever there is 
a strong faculty for anything, the exercise of that faculty 
becomes its own end and reward, and produces an in- 
difference or inattention to other things ; so that the best 
security for success in the world is an incapacity for 
success in any other way. A bookseller, to succeed in his 
business, should have no knowledge of books, except as 
marketable commodities : the instant he has a taste, an 
1 Fielding's Tom Jones. — Ed. 






On Knoivledge of the World. 141 

opinion of his own on the subject, he may consider himself 
as a ruined man. In like manner, a picture-dealer should 
know nothing of pictures but the catalogue price, the cant 
of the day. The moment he has a feeling for the art, he 
will be tenacious of it : a Guido, a Salvator " will be the 
fatal Cleopatra for which he will lose all he is worth, and 
be content to lose it." Should a general, then, know 
nothing of war, a physician of medicine ? No : because 
this is an art and not a trick, and the one has to contend 
with nature, and the other with an enemy, and not to 
pamper or cajole the follies of the world. It requires also 
great talents to overturn the world; not to push one's 
fortune in it : to rule the state like Cromwell or Buona- 
parte ; not, to rise in it like Castlereagh or Croker. Yet, 
even in times of crisis and convulsion, he who outrages the 
feeling of the moment and echoes the wildest extravagance, 
succeeds ; as, in times of peace and tranquillity, he does so 
who acquiesces most tamely in the ordinary routine of 
things. This may serve to point out another error, common 
to men of the world, who sometimes, giving themselves 
credit for more virtue than they possess, declare very 
candidly that if they had to begin life over again, they 
would have been great rogues. The answer to this is, that 
then they would have been hanged. No : the way to get 
on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither 
better nor worse than your neighbours, neither to be a 
" reformer nor a house-breaker," neither to advance before 
the age nor lag behind it, but to be as like it as possible, 
to reflect its image and superscription at every turn, and 
then you will be its darling and its delight, and it will 
dandle you and fondle you, and make much of you, as a 
monkey doats upon its young ! The knowledge of vice — 
that is, of statutable vice — is not the knowledge of the 
world ; otherwise, a Bow-street runner and the keeper of a 
house of ill fame would be the most knowing characters, and 
would soon rise above their professions, . 
July, 1827. 



142 On Fashion. 

On Fashion. 1 

" Born of nothing, begot of nothing." 

*" His garment neither was of silk nor say, 
But painted plumes in goodly order dight, 
Like as the sun-burnt Indians do array, 
Their tawny bodies in their proudest plight : 
As those same plumes, so seemed he vain and light, 
That of his gait might easily appear ; 
For still he fared as dancing in delight, 
And in his hands a windy fan did bear, 
That in the idle air he moved still here and there." 

Fashion is an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies 
and antipathies. It exists only by its being participated 
among a certain number of persons, and its essence is 
destroyed by being communicated to a greater number. 
It is a continual struggle between "the great vulgar and 
the small " to get the start of, or keep up with each other 
in the race of appearances, by an adoption on the part of 
the one of such external and fantastic symbols as strike 
the attention and excite the envy or admiration of the be- 
holder, and which are no sooner made known and exposed 
to public view for this purpose, than they are successfully 
copied by the multitude, the slavish herd of imitators, who 
do not wish to be behindhand with their betters in outward 
show and pretensions, and then sink without any further 
notice into disrepute and contempt. Thus fashion lives 
only in a perpetual round of giddy innovation and restless 
vanity. To be old-fashioned is the greatest crime a coat 
or a hat can be guilty of. To look like nobody else is a 
sufficiently mortifying reflection ; to be in danger of being 
mistaken for one of the rabble is worse. Fashion con- 
stantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, 
singularity and vulgarity. It is the perpetual setting up 

1 Written in 1818.— Ed. 



On Fashion. 143 

and then disowning a certain standard of taste, elegance, 
and refinement, which has no other foundation or authority 
than that it is the prevailing distraction of the moment, 
which was yesterday ridiculous from its being new, and 
to-morrow will be odious from its being common. It is 
one of the most slight and insignificant of all things. It 
cannot be lasting, for it depends on the constant change 
and shifting of its own harlequin disguises ; it cannot be 
sterling, for, if it were, it could not depend on the breath 
of caprice ; it *must be superficial, to produce its immediate 
effect on the gaping crowd ; and frivolous, to admit of its 
being assumed at pleasure, by the numbers of those who 
affect, by being in the fashion, to be distinguished from 
the rest of the world. It is not anything in itself, nor the 
sign of anything but the folly and vanity of those who 
rely upon it as their greatest pride and ornament. It 
takes the firmest hold of weak, flimsy, and narrow minds, 
of those whose emptiness conceives of nothing excellent 
but what is thought so by others, and whose self-conceit 
makes them willing to confine the opinion of all excellence 
to themselves and those like them. That which is true or 
beautiful in itself, is not the less so for standing alone. 
That which is good for anything, is the better for being 
more widely diffused. But fashion is the abortive issue of 
vain ostentation and exclusive egotism : it is haughty, 
trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, 
precise and fantastical, all in a breath — tied to no rule, 
and bound to conform to every whim of the minute. 

" The fashion of an hour marks the wearer." It is a 
sublimated essence of levity, caprice, vanity, extravagance, 
idleness, and selfishness. It thinks of nothing but not 
being contaminated by vulgar use, and winds and doubles 
like a hare, and betakes itself to the most paltry shifts to 
avoid being overtaken by the common hunt that are 
always in full chase after it. It contrives to keep up its 
fastidious pretensions, not by the difficulty of the attain- 



144 On Fashion. 

ment, but by the rapidity and evanescent nature of the 
changes. It is a sort of conventional badge, or under- 
stood passport into select circles, which must still be 
varying (like the water-mark in bank-notes) not to be 
counterfeited by those without the pale of fashionable 
society; for to make the test of admission to all the 
privileges of that refined and volatile atmosphere depend 
on any real merit or extraordinary accomplishment, would 
exclude too many of the pert, the dull, the ignorant, too 
many shallow, upstart, and self-admiring pretenders, to 
enable the few that passed muster to keep one another in 
anv tolerable countenance. If it were the fashion, for 
instance, to be distinguished for virtue, it would be 
difficult to set or follow the example ; but then this would 
confine the pretension to a small number (not the most 
fashionable part of the community), and would carry a 
very singular air with it ; or if excellence in any art or 
science were made the standard of fashion, this would also 
effectually prevent vulgar imitation, but then it would 
equally prevent fashionable impertinence. There would 
be an obscure circle of vertu as well as virtue, drawn 
within the established circle of fashion, a little province 
of a mighty empire — the example of honesty would spread 
slowly, and learning would still have to boast of a 
respectable minority. But of what use would such un- 
courtly and out-of-the-way accomplishments be to the 
great and noble, the rich and fair, without any of the 
eclat, the noise and nonsense which belong to that which 
is followed and admired by all the world alike ? The 
real and solid will never do for the current coin, the 
common wear and tear of foppery and fashion. It must 
be the meretricious, the showy, the outwardly fine, and 
intrinsically worthless — that which lies within the reach 
of the most indolent affectation, that which can be put on 
or off at the suggestion of the most wilful caprice, and for 
which, through all its fluctuations, no mortal reason can 



On Fashion. 145 

be given, but that it is the newest absurdity in vogue ! 
The shape of a head-dress, whether flat or piled (curl on 
curl) several stories high by the help of pins and 
pomatum, the size of a pair of paste buckles, the quantity 
of gold lace on an embroidered waistcoat, the mode of 
taking a pinch of snuff, or of pulling out a pocket-hand- 
kerchief, the lisping and affected pronunciation of certain 
words, the saying Mem for Madam, Lord Foppington's * 
Tarn and 'Pawn honour, with a regular set of visiting 
phrases and insipid sentiments ready sorted for the day, 
were what formerly distinguished the mob of fine gentle- 
men and ladies from the mob of their inferiors. These 
marks and appendages of gentility had their day, and 
were then discarded for others equally peremptory and 
unequivocal. But in all this chopping and changing, it 
is generally one folly that drives out another; one trifle 
that by its specific levity acquires a momentary and 
surprising ascendancy over the last. There is no striking 
deformity of appearance or behaviour that has not been 
made " the outward and visible sign of an inward and 
invisible grace." Factitious imperfections are laid hold 
of to hide real defects. Paint, patches, and powder were 
at one time synonymous with health, cleanliness, and 
beauty. Obscenity, irreligion, swearing, drinking, gaming, 
effeminacy in the one sex and Amazon airs in the other, 
anything, is the fashion while it lasts. In the reign of 
Charles II., the profession and practice of every species 
of extravagance and debauchery were looked upon as the 
indispensable marks of an accomplished cavalier. Since 
that period the court has reformed, and has had rather a 
rustic air. Our belles formerly overloaded themselves 
with dress, of late years they have affected to go almost 
naked — " and are, when unadorned, adorned the most." 
The women having left off stays, the men have taken to 
wear them, if we are to believe the authentic Memoirs 

1 The character so called in Vanbrugh's play of TJie Relapse. — En. 

L 



146 On Fashion. 

of the Fudge Family. 1 The Niobe head is at present 
buried in the poke bonnet, and the French milliners and 
marchandes des modes have proved themselves an over- 
match for the Greek sculptors, in matters of taste and 
costume. 

A very striking change has, however, taken place in 
dress of late years, and some progress has been made in 
taste and elegance, from the very circumstance, that as 
fashion has extended its empire in that direction, it has 
lost its power. While fashion in dress included what was 
costly, it was confined to the wealthier classes ; even 
this was an encroachment on the privileges of rank and 
birth, which for a long time were the only things that 
commanded or pretended to command respect, and we 
find Shakspeare complaining that " the City bears the 
cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ;" but when the 
appearing in the top of the mode no longer depended on 
the power of purchasing certain expensive articles of 
dress, or in the right of wearing them, the rest was so 
obvious and easy, that any one who chose might cut as 
coxcombical a figure as the best. It became a matter of 
mere affectation on the one side, and gradually ceased to 
be made a matter of aristocratic assumption on the other. 
"In the grand carnival of this our age," among other 
changes, this is not the least remarkable, that the 
monstrous pretensions to distinctions in dress have 
dwindled away by tacit consent, and the simplest and 
most graceful have been in the same request with all 
classes. In this respect, as well as some others, " the age 
is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so 
near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe ;" 2 a lord is 
hardly to be distinguished in the street from an attorney's 

1 By Thomas Moore. The Fudge Family in Paris, 1818, was 
followed up by T)ie Fudges in England ; but the former is here 
referred to. — Ed. 

2 Hamlet, y, 1. [Dyce's edit. 1868, vii 196.] 



On Fashion. 147 

clerk ; and a plume of feathers is no longer mistaken for 
the highest distinction in the land ! The ideas of natural 
equality and the Manchester steam-engines together, 
have, like a double battery, levelled the high towers and 
artificial structures of fashion in dress, and a white muslin 
gown is now the common costume of the mistress and 
the maid, instead of the one wearing, as heretofore, rich 
silks and satins, and the other coarse linsey-wolsey. It 
would be ridiculous (on a similar principle) for the 
courtier to take the wall of the citizen, having no longer 
a sword by his side to maintain his right of precedence ; 
and, from the stricter notions that have prevailed of a 
man's personal merit and identity, a cane dangling from 
his wrist is the greatest extension of his figure that can 
be allowed to the modern petit-maitre. 

What shows the worthlessness of mere fashion is, to see 
how easily this vain and boasted distinction is assumed, 
when the restraint of decency or circumstances is once 
removed, by the most uninformed and commonest of the 
people. I know an undertaker that is the greatest prig 
in the streets of London, and an Aldermanbury haber- 
dasher that has the most military strut of any lounger in 
Bond-street or St. James's. We may, at any time, raise 
a regiment of fops from the same number of fools, who 
have vanity enough to be intoxicated with the smartness 
of their appearance, and not sense enough to be ashamed 
of themselves. Every one remembers the story in 
Peregrine Pichle, of the strolling gipsy that he picked up 
in spite, had well scoured, and introduced her into genteel 
company, where she met with great applause, till she got 
into a passion by seeing a fine lady cheat at cards, rapped 
out a volley of oaths, and let nature get the better of art. 
Dress is the great secret of address. Clothes and con- 
fidence will set anybody up in the trade of modish 
accomplishment. Look at the two classes of well-dressed 
females whom we see at the play-house in the boxes. 



148 On Fashion. 

Both are equally dressed in the height of the fashion, 
both are rouged, and wear their neck and arms bare — both 
have the same conscious, haughty, theatrical air — the 
same toss of the head — the same stoop in the shoulders, 
with all the pride that arises from a systematic disdain of 
formal prudery — the same pretence and jargon of fashion- 
able conversation — the same mimicry of tones and phrases 
— the same " lisping, and ambling, and painting, and 
nicknaming of God's creatures ;" the s?„me everything 
but real propriety of behaviour and real refinement of 
sentiment. In all the externals they are as like as the 
reflection in the looking-glass. The only difference 
between the woman of fashion and the woman of pleasure 
is, that the one is what the other only seems to be ; and 
yet the victims of dissipation, who thus rival and almost 
outshine women of the first quality in all the blaze, and 
pride, and glitter of show and fashion, are, in general, no 
better than a set of raw, uneducated, inexperienced 
country girls, or awkward, coarse-fisted servant-maids, 
who require no other apprenticeship or qualification to be 
on a level with persons of the highest distinction in 
society, in all the brilliancy and elegance of outward 
appearance, than that they have forfeited its common 
privileges, and every title to its respect. The truth is, 
that real virtue, beauty, or understanding, are the same, 
whether "in a high or low degree;" and the airs and 
graces of pretended superiority over these which the 
highest classes give themselves, from mere frivolous and 
external accomplishments, are easily imitated, with pro- 
voking success, by the lowest, whenever they dare. 



On Nicknames. 149 



On Nicknames. 1 

"Hse nugse in seria ducimt." 

This is a more important subject than it seems at first 
sight. It is as serious in its results as it is contemptible 
in the means by which these results are brought about. 
Nicknames, for the most part, govern the world. The 
history of politics, of religion, of literature, of morals, and 
of private life, is too often little less than the history of 
nicknames. What are one-half the convulsions of the 
civilised world — the frequent overthrow of states and 
kingdoms — the shock and hostile encounters of mighty 
continents — the battles by sea and land — the intestine 
commotions — the feuds of the Yitelli and Orsini, of the 
Guelphs and Ghibellines — the civil wars in England and 
the League in France — the jealousies and heart-burnings 
of cabinets and councils — the uncharitable proscriptions 
of creeds and sects, Turk, Jew, Pagan, Papist and Puritan, 
Quaker, and Methodist — the persecutions and massacres 
— the burnings, tortures, imprisonments, and lingering 
deaths, inflicted for a different profession of faith — but so 
many illustrations of the power of this principle ? Foxe's 
Book of Martyrs, and Neale's History of the Puritans, are 
comments on the same text. The fires in Smithfield were 
fanned by nicknames, and a nickname set its seal on the 
unopened dungeons of the Holy Inquisition. Nicknames 
are the talismans and spells that collect and set in motion 
all the combustible part of men's passions and prejudices, 
which have hitherto played so much more successful a 
game, and done their work so much more effectually than 
reason, in all the grand concerns and petty details of 
human life, and do not yet seem tired of the task assigned 
1 Written in 1818. 



150 On Nicknames. 

them. Nicknames are the convenient, portable tools by 
which they simplify the process of mischief, and get 
through their job with the least time and trouble. These 
worthless, unmeaning, irritating, envemoned words of re- 
proach are the established signs by which the different 
compartments of society are ticketed, labelled, and marked 
out for each other's hatred and contempt. They are to be 
had, ready cut and dry, of all sorts and sizes, wholesale 
and retail, for foreign exportation or for home consump- 
tion, and for all occasions in life. " The priest calls the 
lawyer a cheat, the lawyer beknaves the divine." The 
Frenchman hates the Englishman because he is an English- 
man; and the Englishman hates the Frenchman for as 
good a reason. The Whig hates the Tory, and the Tory 
the Whig. The Dissenter hates the Church-of-England- 
man, and the Church-of-England-man hates the Dissenter, 
as if they were of a different species, because they have a 
different designation. The Mussulman calls the worshipper 
of the Cross " Christian dog," spits in his face, and kicks 
him from the pavement, by virtue of a nickname ; and the 
Christian retorts the indignity upon the Infidel and the 
Jew by the same infallible rule of right. In France they 
damn Shakspeare in the lump, by calling him a barbare ; 
and we talk of Bacine's verbiage with inexpressible contempt 
and self-complacency. Among ourselves, an anti-Jacobin 
critic denounces a Jacobin poet and his frie*nds, at a ven- 
ture, " as infidels and fugitives, who have left their wives 
destitute, and their children fatherless" — whether they 
have wives and children or not. The unenlightened savage 
makes a meal of his enemy's flesh, after reproaching him 
with the name of his tribe, because he is differently 
tattooed ; and the literary cannibal cuts up the character 
of his opponent by the help of a nickname. The jest of 
all this is, that a party nickname is always a relative term, 
and has its countersign, which has just the same force and 
meaning, so that both must be perfectly ridiculous and 



On Nicknames. 151 

insignificant. A Whig implies a Tory ; there must be 
" Malcontents " as well as " Malignants ;" Jacobins and 
anti- Jacobins ; English and French. These sorts of noms- 
de-guerre derive all their force from their contraries. Take 
away the meaning of the one, and you take the sting out 
of the other. They could not exist but upon the strength 
of mutual and irreconcileable antipathies ; there must be 
no love lost between them. What is there in the names 
themselves to give them a preference over each other? 
" Sound them, they do become the mouth as well ; weigh 
them, they are as heavy ; conjure with them, one will 
raise a spirit as soon as the other." If there were not 
fools and madmen who hated both, there could not be fools 
and madmen bigoted to either. I have heard an eminent 
character boast that he had done more to produce the late 
war by nicknaming Buonaparte " the Corsican," than all 
the state papers and documents on the subject put together. 
And yet Mr. Southey asks triumphantly, " Is it to be 
supposed that it is England, our England, to whom that 
war was owing ? " As if, in a dispute between two 
countries, the conclusive argument, which lies in the 
pronoun our belonged only to one of them. I like Shaks- 
peare's version of the matter better : — 

" Hath Britain all the sun that shines ? Day, night, 
Are they not but in Britain ? F the world's volume 
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't ; 
In a great pool a swan's nest, prithee, think 
There's livers out of Britain." J 

In all national disputes, it is common to appeal to the 
numbers on your side as decisive on the point. If every- 
body in England thought the late war right, everybody in 
France thought it wrong. There were ten millions on one 
side of the question (or rather of the water), and thirty 
millions on the other side — that's all. I remember some 
one arguing, in justification of our Ministers interfering 
1 Cymbeline, iii, 4. [Dyce's edit. 1868, vii, 683.] 



1 52 On Nicknames. 

without occasion, " That governments would not go to war 
for nothing ;" to which I answered : " Then they could 
not go to war at all ; for, at that rate, neither of them 
could be in the wrong, and yet both of them must be in 
the right, which was absurd." The only meaning of these 
vulgar nicknames and party distinctions, where they are 
urged most violently and confidently, is that others differ 
from you in some particular or other (whether it be opinion, 
dress, clime, or complexion), which you highly disapprove 
of, forgetting that, by the same rule, they have the very 
same right to be offended at you because you differ from 
them. Those who have reason on their side do not make 
the most obstinate and grevious appeals to prejudice and 
abusive language. I know but of one exception to this 
general rule, and that is where the things that excite 
disgust are of such a kind that they cannot well be gone 
into without offence to decency and good manners ; but it 
is equally certain in this case, that those who are most 
shocked at the things are not those who are most forward 
to apply the names. A person will not be fond of repeating 
a charge, or adverting to a subject, that inflicts a wound 
on his own feelings, even for the sake of wounding the 
feelings of another. A man should be very sure that he 
himself is not what he has always in his mouth. The 
greatest prudes have been often accounted the greatest 
hypocrites, and a satirist is at best but a suspicious 
character. The loudest and most unblushing invectives 
against vice and debauchery will as often proceed from a 
desire to inflame and pamper the passions of the writer, 
by raking into a nauseous subject, as from a wish to excite 
virtuous indignation against it in the public mind, or to 
reform the individual. To familiarise the mind to gross 
ideas is not the way to increase your own or the general 
repugnance to them. But to return to the subject of nick- 
names. 

The use of this figure of speech is, that it excites a 



On Nicknames. 153 

strong idea without requiring any proof. It is a short- 
hand, compendious mode of getting at a conclusion, and 
never troubling yourself or anybody else with the for- 
malities of reasoning or the dictates of common sense. It 
is superior to all evidence, for it does not rest upon any, 
and operates with the greatest force and certainty in pro- 
portion to the utter want of probability. Belief is only a 
stray impression, and the malignity or extravagance of the 
accusation passes for a proof of the crime. " Brevity is 
the soul of wit ;" and of all eloquence a nickname is the 
most concise, of all arguments the most unanswerable. It 
gives carte-blanche to the imagination, throws the reins on 
the neck of the passions, and suspends the use of the 
understanding altogether. It does not stand upon cere- 
mony, on the nice distinctions of right and wrong. It 
does not wait the slow processes of reason, or stop to 
unravel the wit of sophistry. It takes everything for 
granted that serves for nourishment for the spleen. It 
is instantaneous in its operations. There is nothing to 
interpose between the effect and it. It is passion without 
proof, and action without thought — " the unbought grace 
of life, the cheap defence of nations.'* It does not, as Mr. 
Burke expresses it, "leave the will puzzled, undecided, 
and sceptical in the moment of action." It is a word and 
a blow. The " No Popery" cry, raised a little while ago 
let loose all the lurking spite and prejudice which had 
lain rankling in the proper receptacles for them for above 
a century, without any knowledge of the past history of 
the country which had given rise to them, or any reference 
to their connection with present circumstances ; for the 
knowledge of the one would have prevented the possi- 
bility of their application to the other. Facts present a 
tangible and definite idea to the mind, a train of causes 
and consequences, accounting for each other, and leading 
to a positive conclusion — but no farther. But a nickname 
is tied down to no such limited service ; it is a disposable 



154 On Nicknames. 

force, that is almost always perverted to mischief. It 
clothes itself with all the terrors of uncertain abstraction, 
and there is no end of the abuse to which it is liable but 
the cunning of those who employ, or the credulity of 
those who are gulled by it. It is a reserve of the igno- 
rance, bigotry, and intolerance of weak and vulgar minds, 
brought up where reason fails, and always ready, at a 
moment's warning, to be applied to any, the most absurd 
purposes. If you bring specific charges against a man, 
you thereby enable him to meet and repel them, if he 
thinks it worth his while ; but a nickname baffles reply, 
by the very vagueness of the inferences from it, and gives 
increased activity to the confused, dim, and imperfect 
notions of dislike connected with it, from their having no 
settled ground to rest upon. The mind naturally irritates 
itself against an unknown object of fear or jealousy, and 
makes up for the blindness of its zeal by an excess of it. 
We are eager to indulge our hasty feelings to the utmost, 
lest, by stopping to examine, we should find that there is 
no excuse for them. The very consciousness of the in- 
justice we may be doing another makes us only the more 
loud and bitter in our invectives against him. We keep 
down the admonitions of returning reason, by calling up 
a double portion of gratuitous and vulgar spite. The will 
may be said to act with most force in vacuo ; the passions 
are the most ungovernable when they are blindfolded. 
That malignity is always the most implacable which is 
accompanied with a sense of weakness, because it is never 
satisfied of its own success or safety. A nickname carries 
the weight of the pride, the indolence, the cowardice, the 
ignorance, and the ill-nature of mankind on its side. It 
acts by mechanical sympathy on the nerves of society. 
Any one who is without character himself may make 
himself master of the reputation of another by the applica- 
tion of a nickname, as, if you do not mind soiling your 
fingers, you may always throw dirt on another. No 



On Nicknames. 155 

matter how undeserved the imputation, it will stick ; for, 
though it is sport to the bystanders to see you bespattered, 
they will not stop to see you wipe out the stains. You 
are not heard in your own defence ; it has no effect, it 
does not tell, excites no sensation, or it is only felt as a 
disappointment of their triumph over you. Their passions 
and prejudices are inflamed by the charge, " As rage with 
rage doth sympathise ;" by vindicating yourself, you 
merely bring them back to common-sense, which is a very 
sober, mawkish state. Give a dog an ill name and Jiang him, 
is a proverb. " A nickname is the heaviest stone that the 
devil can throw at a man." It is a bugbear to the imagina- 
tion, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts 
our apprehensions. Let a nickname be industriously 
applied to our dearest friend, and let us know that it 
is ever so false and malicious, yet it will answer its end ; 
it connects the person's name and idea with an ugly 
association, you think of them with pain together, or it 
requires an effort of indignation or magnanimity on your 
part to disconnect them ; it becomes an uneasy subject, a 
sore point, and you will sooner desert your friend, or join 
in the conspiracy against him, than be constantly forced to 
repel charges without truth or meaning, and have your 
penetration or character called in question by a rascal. 
Nay, such is the unaccountable construction of language 
and of the human mind, that the affixing the most innocent 
or praiseworthy appellation to any individual, or set of 
individuals, as a nickname, has all the effect of the most 
opprobrious epithets. Thus the cant name, " the Talents," 
was successfully applied as a stigma to the Whigs at one 
time ; it held them up to ridicule, and made them ob- 
noxious to public feeling, though it was notorious to 
-everybody that the Whig leaders were "the Talents," and 
that their adversaries nicknamed them so from real hatred 
and pretended derision. Call a man short by his Christian 
name, as Tom or Dick such-a-one, or by his profession 



156 On Nicknames. 

(however respectable), as Canning pelted a noble lord with 
his left-off title of Doctor, and you undo him for ever, if 
he has a reputation to lose. ' Such is the tenaciousness of 
spite and ill-nature, or the jealousy of public opinion, even 
this will be peg enough to hang doubtful inuendos, weighty 
dilemmas upon, " With so small a web as this will I 
catch so great a fly as Cassio." The public do not like 
to see their favourites treated with impertinent familiarity ; 
it lowers the tone of admiration very speedily. It implies 
that some one stands in no great awe of their idol, and he 
perhaps may know as much about the matter as they do. 
It seems as if a man whose name, with some contemptuous 
abbreviation, is always dinned in the public ear, was dis- 
tinguished for nothing else. By repeating a man's name 
in this manner you may soon make him sick of it, and of 
his life too. Children do not like to be called out of their 
names : it is questioning their personal identity. There 
are political writers who have fairly worried their readers 
into conviction by abuse and nicknames. People surrender 
their judgments to escape the persecution of their style, 
and the disgust and indignation which their incessant 
violence and vulgarity excite, at last make you hate those 
who are the objects of it. Causa causce causa causati. 
They make people sick of a subject by making them sick 
of their arguments. 

A parrot may be taught to call names; and if the 
person who keeps the parrot has a spite to his neighbours, 
he may give them a great deal of annoyance without much 
wit, either in the employer or the puppet. The in- 
significance of the instrument has nothing to do with the 
efficacy of the means. Hotspur would have had "a 
starling taught to speak nothing but Mortimer," in the 
ears of his enemy. Nature, it is said, has given arms to 
all creatures the most proper to defend themselves, and 
annoy others : to the lowest she has given the use of 
nicknames. 



On Nicknames. 157 

There are some droll instances of the effect of proper 
names combined with circumstances. A young student 
had come up to London from Cambridge, and went in the 
evening and planted himself in the pit of the playhouse. 
He had not been seated long, when in one of the front 
boxes near him he discovered one of his college tutors, 
with whom he felt an immediate and strong desire to 
claim acquaintance, and accordingly he called out, in a 
low and respectful voice, "Dr. Topping!" The appeal 
was, however, ineffectual. He then repeated in a louder 
tone, but still in an under key, so as not to excite the 
attention of any one but his friend, "Dr. Topping!" 
The Doctor took no notice. He then grew more im- 
patient, and repeated " Dr. Topping, Dr. Topping !" two 
or three times pretty loud, to see whether the Doctor did 
not or would not hear him. Still the Doctor remained 
immovable. The joke began at length to get round, and 
one or two persons, as he continued his invocation of the 
Doctor's name, joined in with him ; these were reinforced 
by others calling out, "Dr. Topping, Dr. Topping!" on 
all sides, so that he could no longer avoid perceiving 
it, and at length the whole pit rose and roared, 
"Dr. Topping!" with loud and repeated cries, and the 
Doctor was forced to retire precipitately, frightened at the 
sound of his own name. 

The calling people by their Christian or surname is a 
proof of affection, as well as of hatred. They are gene- 
rally the best of good fellows with whom their friends 
take this sort of liberty. Diminutives are titles of endear- 
ment. Dr. Johnson's calling Goldsmith " Goldy " did 
equal honour to both. It showed the regard he had for 
him. This familiarity may perhaps imply a certain want 
of formal respect ; but formal respect is not neccessary to, 
if it is consistent with, cordial friendship. Titles of 
honour are the reverse of nicknames : they convey the 
idea of respect, as the others do of contempt, but they 



158 On Taste. 

equally mean little or nothing. Junius's motto, Stat 
nominis 'umbra, is a very significant one; it might be 
extended farther. A striking instance of the force of 
names, standing by themselves, is in the respect felt 
towards Michael Angelo in this country. We know 
nothing of him but his name. It is an abstraction of 
fame and greatness. Our admiration of him supports 
itself, and our idea of his superiority seems self-evident, 
because it is attached to his name only. 



On Taste} 

Taste is nothing but sensibility to the different degrees 
and kinds of excellence in the works of Art or Nature. 
This definition will perhaps be disputed ; for I am aware 
the general practice is to make it consist in a disposition 
to find fault. 

A French man or woman will in general conclude their 
account of Voltaire's denunciation of Shakspeare and 
Milton as barbarians, on the score of certain technical 
improprieties, with assuring you that " he (Voltaire) had 
a great deal of taste." It is their phrase, II avait beaucoup 
de gout. To which the proper answer is, that this may 
be, but that he did not show it in this case ; as the 
overlooking great and countless beauties, and being taken 
up only with petty or accidental blemishes, shows as 
little strength or understanding as it does refinement or 
elevation of taste. The French author, indeed, allows of 
Shakspeare, that " he had found a few pearls on his 
enormous dunghill." But there is neither truth nor 
proportion in this sentence, for his works are (to say the 

least) — 

" Eich with praise 
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea 
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries." 2 



Written in 1819. 2 Henry Y. t i, 2, edit. 1868, iv, 429. 



On Taste. 159 

Genius is the power of producing excellence : taste is 
the power of perceiving the excellence thus produced in 
its several sorts and degrees, with all their force, refine- 
ment, distinctions, and connections. In other words, 
taste (as it relates to the productions of art) is strictly the 
power of being properly affected by works of genius. It 
is the proportioning admiration to power, pleasure to 
beauty ; it is entire sympathy with the finest impulses of 
the imagination, not antipathy, not indifference to them. 
The eye of taste may be said to reflect the impressions of 
real genius, as the even mirror reflects the objects of 
Nature in all their clearness and lustre, instead of dis- 
torting or diminishing them ; 

" Or, like a gate of steel, 
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
His figure and his heat." 

To take a pride and pleasure in nothing but defects 
(and these perhaps of the most paltry, obvious, and 
mechanical kind) — in the disappointment and tarnishing 
of our faith in substantial excellence, in the proofs of 
weakness, not of power (and this where there are endless 
subjects to feed the mind with wonder and increased 
delight through years of patient thought and fond remem- 
brance), is not a sign of uncommon refinement, but of 
unaccountable perversion of taste. So, in the case of 
Voltaire's hypercriticisms on Milton and Shakspeare, the 
most common-place and prejudiced admirer of these 
authors knows, as well as Voltaire can tell him, that it is 
a fault to make a sea-port (we will say) in Bohemia, or to 
introduce artillery and gunpowder in the war in heaven. 
This is common to Voltaire, and the merest English 
reader : there is nothing in it either way. But what he 
differs from us in, and, as it is supposed, greatly to his 
advantage, and to our infinite shame and mortification, is, 
that this is all that he perceives, or will hear of in Milton 
or Shakspeare, and that he either knows, or pretends to 



160 On Taste. 

know, nothing of that prodigal waste, or studied accu- 
mulation of grandeur, truth, and beauty, which are to be 
found in each of these authors. Now, I cannot think 
that, to be dull and insensible to so great and such various 
excellence — to have no feeling in unison with it, no latent 
suspicion of the treasures hid beneath our feet, and which 
we trample upon with ignorant scorn — to be cut off, as by 
a judicial blindness, from that universe of thought and 
imagination that shifts its wondrous pageant before us — 
to turn aside from the throng and splendour of airy 
shapes that fancy weaves for our dazzled sight, and to 
strut and vapour over a little pettifogging blunder in 
geography or chronology, which a school-boy or village 
pedagogue would be ashamed to insist upon, is any proof 
of the utmost perfection of taste, but the contrary. At 
this rate, it makes no difference whether Shakspeare 
wrote his works or not, or whether the critic, who " damns 
him into everlasting redemption " for a single slip of the 
pen, ever read them ; he is absolved from all knowledge, 
taste, or feeling, of the different excellences, and inimit- 
able creations of the poet's pen — from any sympathy 
with the wanderings and the fate of Imogen, the beauty 
and tenderness of Ophelia, the thoughtful abstraction of 
Hamlet ; his soliloquy on life may never have given him a 
moment's pause, or touched his breast with one solitary 
reflection ; the Witches in Macbeth may " lay their choppy 
fingers upon their skinny lips" without making any 
alteration in his pulse, and Lear's heart may break in 
vain for him ; he may hear no strange noises in Prosperous 
island, and the moonlight that sleeps on beds of flowers, 
where fairies couch in the Midsummer NigMs Dream, may 
never once have steeped his senses in repose. Nor will it 
avail Milton to " have built high towers in heaven," nor 
to have brought down heaven upon earth, nor that he 
has made Satan rear his giant form before us, " Majestic 
though in ruin," or decked the bridal bed of Eve with 



On Taste, 161 

beauty, or clothed her with innocence, " likest heaven," 
as she ministered to Adam and his Angel-guest. Our 
critic knows nothing of all this, of beauty or sublimity, of 
thought or passion, breathed in sweet or solemn sounds, 
with all the magic of verse " in tones and numbers fit ; " 
he lays his finger on the map, and shows you that there is 
no sea-port for Shakspeare's weather-beaten travellers to 
land at in Bohemia, and takes out a list of mechanical 
inventions, and proves that gunpowder was not known till 
long after Milton's " Battle of the Angels ; " and concludes, 
that every one who, after these profound and important 
discoveries, finds anything to admire in these two writers, 
is a person without taste, or any pretensions to it. By 
the same rule, a thorough-bred critic might prove that 
Homer was no poet, and the Odyssey a vulgar per- 
formance, because Ulysses makes a pun on the name of 
Noman ; or some other disciple of the same literal school 
might easily set aside the whole merit of Eacine's Athalie, 
or Moliere's JEcole des Femmes, and pronounce these 
chef-a" oeuvres of art barbarous and gothic, because the 
characters in the first address one another (absurdly 
enough) as Monsieur and Madame, and because the latter 
is written in rhyme, contrary to all classical precedent. 
These little false measures of criticism may be misapplied, 
and retorted without end, and require to be eked out by 
national antipathy or political prejudice to give them 
currency and weight. Thus it was in war time that the 
author of the Friend ventured to lump all the French 
tragedies together as a smart collection of -epigrams, and 
that the author of the Excursion, a poem, being portion 1 of 

1 Why is the word portion here used, as if it were a portion of 
Scripture ? 

" Those strains that once did sweet in Zioa glide, 
He wales a portion with judicious care." 

Cottar's Saturday Night. 
Now, Mr, "Wordsworth's poems, though not profane ; yet neither 

M 



162 On Taste. 

a larger poem, to be named the Recluse, made bold to call 
Voltaire a dull prose-writer with impunity. Such pitiful 
quackery is a cheap way of setting up for exclusive taste 
and wisdom, by pretending to despise what is most 
generally admired, as if nothing could come up to or 
satisfy that ideal standard of excellence, of which the 
person bears about the select pattern in his own mind. 
Cb Not to admire anything " is as bad a test of wisdom as it 
is a rule for happiness. We sometimes meet with indi- 
viduals who have formed their whole character on this 
maxim, and who ridiculously affect a decided and dog- 
matical tone of superiority over others, from an uncommon 
degree both of natural and artificial stupidity. They are 
blind to painting — deaf to music— indifferent to poetry ; 
and they triumph in the catalogue of their defects as the 
fault of these arts, because they have not sense enough to 
perceive their own want of perception. To treat any art 
or science with contempt, is only to prove your own 
incapacity and want of taste for it : to say that what has 
been done best in any kind is good for nothing, is to say 
that the utmost exertion of human ability is not equal to 
the lowest, for the productions of the lowest are worth 
something, except by comparison with what is better. 
When we hear persons exclaiming that the pictures at the 
Marquis of Stafford's 1 or Mr. Angerstein's, or those at 
the British Gallery, are a heap of trash, we might tell 
them that they betray in this a want, not of taste only, 



are they sacred, to deserve this solemn style, though some of his 
admirers have gone so far as to compare them, for primitive, patri- 
archal simplicity, to the historical parts of the Bible. Much has 
been said of the merits and defects of this large poem, which is 
" portion of a larger ;" perhaps Horace's rule has been a double bar 
to its success — Non satis est pulchva poemata es.se, dulcia sunto. The 
features of this author's muse want sweetness of expression as well 
as regularity of outline. 

1 Now transferred to Bridsrewater House. — Ed. 



On Taste. 163 

but of common-sense, fox that these collections contain 
some of the finest specimens of the greatest masters, and 
that that must be excellent in the productions of human 
art, beyond which human genius, in any age or country, 
has not been able to go.. Ask these very fastidious critics 
what it is that they do like, and you will soon find, from 
tracing out the objects of their secret admiration, that 
their pretended disdain of first-rate excellence is owning 
either to ignorance of the last refinements of works of 
genius, or envy at the general admiration which they 
have called forth. I have known a furious philippic 
against the faults of shining talents and established 
reputation subside into complacent admiration of dull 
mediocrity, that neither tasked the kindred sensibility of 
its admirers beyond its natural inertness, nor touched his 
self-love with a consciousness of inferiority ; and that, by 
never attempting original beauties, and never failing, gave 
no opportunity to intellectual ingratitude to be plausibly 
revenged for the pleasure or instruction it had reluctantly 
received. So there are judges who cannot abide Mr. Kean, 
and think Mr. Young an incomparable actor, for no other 
leason than because he never shocks them with an idea 
which they had not before. The only excuse for the over- 
delicacy and supercilious indifference here described, is 
when it arises from an intimate acquaintance with, and 
intense admiration of, other and higher degrees of per- 
fection and genius. A person whose mind has been 
worked up to a lofty pitch of enthusiasm in this way 
cannot, perhaps, condescend to notice, or be much de- 
lighted with inferior beauties ; but, then, neither will he 
dwell upon, and be preposterously offended with, slight 
faults. So that the ultimate and only conclusive proof of 
taste is, even here, not indifference but enthusiasm ; and 
before a critic can give himself airs of superiority for 
what he despises, he must first lay himself open to 
reprisals, by telling us what he admires. There we may 



164 On Taste. 

fairly join issue with him. Without this indispensable 
condition of all true taste, absolute stupidity must be 
more than on a par with the most exquisite refinement ; 
and the most formidable Drawcansir of all would be the 
most impenetrable blockhead. Thus, if we know that 
Voltaire's contempt of Shakspeare arose from his idolatry 
of Racine, this may excuse him in a national point of 
view ; but he has no longer any advantage over us ; 
and we must console ourselves as well as we can for 
Mr. Wordsworth's not allowing us to laugh at the wit of 
Voltaire, by laughing now and then at the only author 
whom he is known to understand and admire ! * 

Instead of making a disposition to find fault a proof of 
taste, I would reverse the rule, and estimate every one's 
pretensions to taste by the degree of their sensibility to 
the highest and most various excellence. An indifference 
to less degrees of excellence is only excusable as it arises 
from a knowledge and admiration of higher ones ; and a 
readiness in the detection of faults should pass for refine- 
ment only as it is owing to a quick sense and impatient 
love of beauties. In a word, fine taste consists in sym- 
pathy, not in antipathy ; and the rejection of what is bad 
is only to be accounted a virtue when it implies a pre- 
ference of and attachment to what is better. 

There is a certain point which may be considered as 
the highest point of perfection at which the human 
faculties can arrive in the conception and execution of 
certain things ; to be able to reach this point in reality is 
the greatest proof of genius and power ; and I imagine 
that the greatest proof of taste is given in being able to 
appreciate it when done. For instance, I have heard 

1 A French teacher, in reading Titus and Berenice with an 
English pupil, used to exclaim, in raptures, at the best passages, 
" What have you in Shakespeare equal to this ?" This showed that 
he had a taste for Kacine, and a power of appreciating his beauties, 
though he might want an equal taste for Shakspeare. 



On Taste. 165 

(and I can believe) that Madame Catalani's manner of 
singing Hope told a flattering tale was the perfection of 
singing ; and I cannot conceive that it would have been 
the perfection of taste to have thought nothing at all of 
it. There was, I understand, a sort of fluttering of the 
voice and a breathless palpitation of the heart (like the 
ruffling of the feathers of the robin-redbreast), which 
completely gave back all the uneasy and thrilling volup- 
tuousness of the sentiment ; and I contend that the person 
on whom not a particle of this expression was lost (or 
would have been lost, if it had been even finer), into whom 
the tones of sweetness or tenderness sink deeper and 
deeper as they approach the farthest verge of ecstacy or 
agony, he who has an ear attuned to the trembling har- 
mony, and a heart " pierceable" by pleasure's finest point, 
is the best judge of music — not he who remains insensible 
to the matter himself, or, if you point it out to him, asks, 
" What of it ? " I fancied that I had a triumph, some time 
ago, over a critic and connoisseur in music, who thought 
little of the minuet in Don Giovanni ; but the same person 
redeemed his pretensions to musical taste, in my opinion, 
by saying of some passage in Mozart, " This is a soliloquy 
equal to any in Hamlet" In hearing the accompaniment 
in the Messiah, of angels' voices to the shepherds keeping 
watch at night, who has the most taste and delicacy— he 
who listens in silent rapture to the silver sounds, as they 
rise in sweetness and soften into distance, drawing the 
soul from earth to heaven, and making it partake of the 
music of the spheres— or he who remains deaf to the 
summons, and remarks that it is an allegorical conceit ? 
Which would Handel have been most pleased with, the 
man who was seen standing at the performance of the 
Coronation Anthem in Westminster Abbey, with his face 
bathed in tears, and mingling "the drops which sacred 
joy had engendered " with that ocean of circling sound, or 
with him who sat with frigid, critical aspect, his heart 



166 On Taste. 

untouched and his looks unaltered as the statues on the 
wall ? * Again, if any one, in looking at Bembrandt's 
picture of Jacob's Dream, should not be struck with the 
solemn awe that surrounds it, and with the dazzling flights 
of angels' wings, like steps of golden light, emanations of 
flame or spirit hovering between earth and sky, and should 
observe very wisely that Jacob was thrown in one corner 
of the picture like a bundle of clothes, without power, 
form, or motion, and should think this a defect, I should 
say that such a critic might possess great knowledge of 
the mechanical part of painting, but not an atom of feeling 
or imagination. Or who is it that, looking at the pro- 
ductions of Eaphael or Titian, is the person of true taste, 
he who finds what there is, or he who finds what there is 
not, in each ? Not he who picks a petty, vulgar quarrel 
with the colouring of Eaphael, or the drawing of Titian, 
is the true critic and judicious spectator, but he who 
broods over the expression of the one till it takes pos- 
session of his soul, and who dwells on the tones and hues 
of the other till his eye is saturated with truth and beauty ; 
for by this means he moulds his mind to the study and 
reception of what is most perfect in form and colour, 
instead of letting it remain empty, " swejjt and garnished," 
or rather a dull blank, with " knowledge at each entrance 
quite shut out." He who cavils- at the want of drawing 
in Titian is not the most sensible to it in Eaphael ; in- 

1 It is a fashion among the scientific, or pedantic part of the 
musical world, to decry Miss Stephens's singing as feeble and 
insipid. This it is to take things by their contraries. Her ex- 
cellence does not lie iu force or contrast, but in sweetness and sim- 
plicity. To give only one instance. Any person who does not feel 
the beauty of her singing the lines in Artaxerxes, " What was my 
pride is now my shame," &c, in which the notes seem to fall from 
her lips like languid drops from the bending flower, and her voice 
flutters and dies away with the expiring conflict of passion in her 
bosom, may console himself with the possession of other faculties, 
but assuredly he has no ear for music. 



On Taste. 167 

stead of that lie only insists on the latter's want of colour- 
ing. He who is offended at Eaphael's hardness and 
monotony is not delighted with the soft, rich pencilling of 
Titian ; he only takes care to find fault with him for 
wanting that which, if he possessed it in the highest 
degree, he would not admire or understand. And this is 
easy to be accounted for. First, such a critic has been 
told what to do, and follows his instructions ; secondly, to 
perceive the height of any excellence, it is necessary to 
have the most exquisite sense of that kind of excellence 
through all its gradations : to perceive the want of any 
excellence, it is merely necessary to have a negative or 
abstract notion of the thing, or perhaps only of the name ; 
or, in other words, any, the most crude and mechanical 
idea of a given quality is a measure of positive deficiency, 
whereas none but the most refined idea of the same quality 
can be a standard of superlative merit. To distinguish 
the finest characteristics of Titian or Eaphael — to go 
along with them in their imitation of nature, is to be so 
far like them — to be occupied only with that in which 
they fell short of others, instead of that in which they 
soared above them, shows a vulgar, narrow capacity, in- 
sensible to anything beyond mediocrity, and an ambition 
still more grovelling. To be dazzled by admiration of 
the greatest excellence, and of the highest works of genius, 
is natural to the best capacities and the best natures; 
envy and dulness are most apt to detect minute blemishes 
and unavoidable inequalities, as we see the spots in the 
sun by having its rays blunted by mist or smoke. It may 
be asked, then, whether mere extravagance and enthusiasm 
are proofs of taste ? And I answer, no ; where they are 
without reason and knowledge. Mere sensibility is not 
true taste, but sensibility to real excellence is. To admire 
and be wrapt up in what is trifling or absurd, is a proof 
of nothing but ignorance or affectation : on the contrary, 
he who admires most what is most worthy of admiration 



168 On Taste. 

(let his raptures or his eagerness to express them be what 
they may), shows himself neither extravagant nor unwise. 
When Mr. Wordsworth once said that he could read the 
description of Satan in Milton — 

" Nor seem'd 
Less than arch-angel ruin'd, and the excess 
Of glory obscur'd " — 

till he felt a certain faintness come over his mind from a 
sense of beauty and grandeur, I saw no extravagance in 
this, but the utmost truth of feeling. When the same 
author, or his friend Mr. Southey, says, that the Excursion 
is better worth preserving than the Paradise Lost, this 
appears to me a great piece of impertinence, or an un- 
warrantable stretch of friendship. 

The highest taste is shown in habitual sensibility to 
the greatest beauties ; the most general taste is shown in 
a perception of the greatest variety of excellence. Many 
people admire Milton, and as many admire Pope, while 
there are but few who have any relish for both. 
Almost all the disputes on this subject arise, not so much 
from false as from confined taste. We suppose that only 
one thing can have merit ; and that, if we allow it to 
anything else, we deprive the favourite object of our 
critical faith of the honours due to it. We are generally 
right in what we approve ourselves, for liking proceeds 
from a certain conformity of objects to the taste ; as we 
are generally wrong in condemning what others admire, 
for our dislike mostly proceeds from a want of taste for 
what pleases them. Our being totally senseless to what 
excites extreme delight in those who have as good a right 
to judge as we have, in all human probability, implies a 
defect of faculty in us rather than a limitation in the 
resources of nature or art. Those who are pleased with 
the fewest things, know the least ; as those who are 
pleased with everything, know nothing. Shakspeare 
makes Mrs. Quickly say of Falstaff, by a pleasant blunder, 



' On Taste. 169 

that "A' could never abide carnation." 1 So there are 
persons who cannot like Claude, because he is not 
Salvator Eosa ; some who cannot endure Eembrandt, and 
others who would not cross the street to see a Vandyke ; 
one reader does not like the neatness of Junius, and 
another objects to the extravagance of Burke ; and they 
are all right, if they expect to find in others what is only 
to be found in their favourite author or artist, but equally 
wrong if they mean to say that each of those they would 
condemn by a narrow and arbitrary standard of taste, has 
not a peculiar and transcendent merit of his own. The 
question is not whether you like a certain excellence (it is 
your own fault if you do not), but whether another pos- 
sessed it in a very eminent degree. If he did not, who is 
there that possessed it in a greater — that ranks above him 
in that particular ? Those who are accounted the best, 
are the best in their line. When we say that Eembrandt 
was a master of chiaroscuro, for instance, we do not say 
that he joined to this the symmetry of the Greek statues, 
but we mean that we must go to him for the perfection of 
chiaroscuro, and that a Greek statue has not chiaroscuro. 
If any one objects to Junius's Letters, that they are a 
tissue of epigrams, we answer, be it so ; it is for that very 
reason that we admire them. Again, should any one find 
fault with Mr. Burke's writings as a collection of rhap- 
sodies, the proper answer always would be, " Who is there 
that has written finer rhapsodies ? " I know an admirer 
of Don Quixote who can see no merit in Gil Bias, and an 
admirer of Gil Bias who could never get through Don 
Quixote. I myself have great pleasure in reading both 
these works, and in that respect think I have an advantage 
over both these critics. It always struck me as a singular 
proof of good taste, good sense, and liberal thinking, in 
an old friend, 2 who had Paine's Bights of Manendi Burke's 

1 Henry V., ii, 3. 

2 The Eev. Joseph Fawcett; see Memoirs, J 867, i. 81, and ii. 
291.— Ed. 



170 On Taste. 

Reflections on the French Revolution bound up in one 
volume, and who said, that, both together, they made a 
very good book. To agree with the greatest number of 
sound judges is to be in the right, and sound judges are 
persons of natural sensibility and acquired knowledge. 1 
On the other hand, it must be owned, there are critics 
whose praise is a libel, and whose recommendation of any 
work is enough to condemn it. Men of the greatest 
genius are not always persons of the most liberal and 
unprejudiced taste. They have a strong bias to certain 
qualities themselves, are for reducing others to their own 
standard, and lie less open to the general impressions of 
things. This exclusive preference of their own peculiar 
excellences to those of others, in writers whose merits 
have not been sufficiently understood or acknowledged by 
their contemporaries, chiefly because they were not com- 
monplace, may sometimes be seen mounting up to a 
degree of bigotry and intolerance, little short of insanity. 
There are some critics I have known who never allow an 
author any merit till all the world " cry out upon him," 
and others who never allow another any merit that any 
one can discover but themselves. If there are con- 
noisseurs who spend their lives and waste their breath in 
extolling sublime passages in obscure writers, and lovers 
who choose their mistresses for their ugly faces, this is 
not taste but affectation. What is popular is not neces- 
sarily vulgar ; and that which we try to rescue from fatal 
obscurity, had in general much better remain where it is. 
Taste relates to that which, either in the objects of 
nature, or the imitation of them or the Fine Arts in general 
is calculated to give pleasure. Now, to know what is cal- 
culated to give pleasure, the way is to enquire what does 

1 I apprehend that natural is of more importance than acquired 
sensibility. Thus, any one, without having been at an opera, may 
judge of opera dancing, only from having seen (with judicious eyes) 
a stag bound across a lawn, or a tree wave its branches in the air. 
In all, the general principles of motion are the same. 



On Taste. 171 

give pleasure : so that taste is, after all, much more a matter 
of fact and less of theory than might be imagined. We 
may hence determine another point, viz. — whether there is 
any universal or exclusive standard of taste, since this is 
to inquire, in other words, whether there is any one thing 
that pleases all the world alike, or whether there is only 
one thing that pleases anybody, both which questions carry 
their own answers with them. Still it does not follow, 
because there is no dogmatic or bigoted standard of taste, 
like a formula of faith, which whoever does not believe 
without doubt he shall be dammed everlastingly, that there 
is no standard of taste whatever, that is to say, that 
certain things are not more apt to please than others, that 
some do not please more generally, that there are not 
others that give most pleasure to those who have studied 
the subject, that one nation is most susceptible of a par- 
ticular kind of beauty, and another of another, according 
to their characters, &c. It would be a difficult attempt to 
force all these into one general rule or system, and yet 
equally so to deny that they are absolutely capricious, and 
without any foundation or principle whatever. There are, 
doubtless, books for children that we discard as we grow 
up ; yet, what are the majority of mankind, or even 
readers, but grown children ? If put to the vote of ail the 
milliners' girls in London, Old Mortality, or even Heart oj 
Mid-Lothian, would not carry the day (or, at least, not 
very triumpantly) over a common Minerva-press novel ; 
and I will hazard another opinion, that no women ever 
liked Burke. Mr. Pratt, on the contrary, said that he had 
to " boast of many learned and beautiful suffrages." 1 
It is not, then, solely from the greatest number of voices, 
but from the opinion of the greatest number of well- 
informed minds, that we can establish, if not an absolute 
standard, at least a comparative scale, of taste. Certainly, 

1 In answer to a criticism by Mr. Godwin on his poem called 
Sympathy. 



172 On Taste. 

it can hardly be doubted that the greater the number of 
persons of strong natural sensibility or love for any art, 
and who have paid the closest attention to it, who agree 
in their admiration of any work of art, the higher do its 
pretensions rise to classical taste and intrinsic beauty. In 
this way, as the opinion of a thousand good judges may 
outweigh that of nearly all the rest of the world, so there 
may be one individual among them whose opinion may 
outweigh that of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine ; 
that is, one of a still stronger and more refined perception 
of beauty than all the rest, and to whose opinion that of 
the others and of the world at large would approximate and 
be conformed, as their taste or perception of what was 
pleasing became stronger and more confirmed by exercise 
and proper objects to call it forth. Thus, if we were still 
to insist on an universal standard of taste, it must be that, 
not which does, but which would please universally, sup- 
posing all men to have paid an equal attention to any 
subject and to have an equal relish for it, which can only 
be guessed at by the imperfect and yet more than casual 
agreement among those who have done so from choice and 
feeling. Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for 
receiving pleasure from works of imagination, &c. It is 
time, however, to apply this rule. There is, for instance, 
a much greater number of habitual readers and play-goers 
in France, who are devoted admirers of Racine or Moliere 
than there are in England of Shakspeare : does Shak- 
speare's fame rest, then, on a less broad and solid founda- 
tion than that of either of the others ? I think not, 
supposing that the class of judges to whom Shakspeare's 
excellences appeal are a higher, more independent, and 
more original court of criticism, and that their suffrages 
are quite as unanimous (though not so numerous) in the 
one case as in the other. A simile or a sentiment is not 
the worse in common opinion for being somewhat super- 
ficial and hackneyed, but it is the worse in poetry. The 






On Taste. 173 

perfection of commonplace is that which would unite the 
greatest number of suffrages, if there were not a tribunal 
above commonplace. For instance, in Shakspeare's de- 
scription of flowers, primroses are mentioned — 

" That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty :" x 

Now, I do not know that this expression is translatable 
into French, or intelligible to the common reader of either 
nation, but raise the scale of fancy, passion, and observa- 
tion of nature to a certain point, and I will be bold to say- 
that there will be no scruple entertained whether this 
single metaphor does not contain more poetry of the kind 
than is to be found in all Eacine. As no Frenchman 
could write it, so I believe no Frenchman can understand 
it. We cannot take this insensibility on their part as a 
mark of our superiority, for we have plenty of persons 
among ourselves in the same predicament, but not the 
wisest or most refined, and to these the appeal is fair from 
the many — " and fit audience find, though few." So I 
think it requires a higher degree of taste to judge of 
Titian's portraits than Eaphael's scripture pieces : not 
that I think more highly of the former than the latter, but 
the world and connoisseurs in general think there is no 
comparison (from the dignity of the subject), whereas I 
think it difficult to decide which are the finest. Here 
again we have a commonplace, a preconception, the 
moulds of the judgment preoccupied by certain assump- 
tions of degrees and classes of excellence, instead of 
judging from the true and genuine impressions of things. 
Men of genius, or those who can produce excellence would 
be the best judges of it — poets of poetry, painters of 
painting, &c. — but that persons of original and strong 
pow r ers of mind are too much disposed to refer everything 
to their own peculiar bias, and are comparatively indif- 

1 Winter's Tale, iv. 3, edit. 1868, iii. 4C9. 



174 On Taste. 

ferent to merely passive impressions. On the other hand, 
it is wholly wrong to oppose taste to genius, for genius in 
works of art is nothing but the power of producing what is 
beautiful (which, however, implies the intimate sense of it), 
though this is something very different from mere negative 
or formal beauties, which have as little to do with taste as 
genius. 

I have, in a former essay, ascertained one principal of 
taste or excellence in the arts of imitation, where it was 
shown that objects of sense are not as it were simple and 
self-evident propositions, but admit of endless analysis and 
the most subtle investigation. We do not see nature with 
our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. 
To suppose that we see the whole of any object, merely by 
looking at it, is a vulgar error : we fancy that we do, 
because we are, of course, conscious of no more than we see 
in it, but this circle of our knowledge enlarges with further 
acquaintance and study, and we then perceive that what 
we perhaps barely distinguished in the gross, or regarded 
as a dull blank, is full of beauty, meaning, and curious 
details. He sees most of nature who understands its 
language best, or connects one thing with the greatest 
number of other things. Expression is the key to the 
human countenance, and unfolds a thousand imperceptible 
distinctions. How, then, should every one be a judge ot 
pictures, when so few are of faces ? A merely ignorant 
spectator, walking through a gallery of pictures, no more 
distinguishes the finest than your dog would, if he was to 
accompany you. Do not even the most experienced dis- 
pute on the preference, and shall the most ignorant decide ? 
A vulgar connoisseur would even prefer a Denner to a 
Titian, because there is more of merely curious and specific 
detail. We may hence account for another circumstance, 
why things please in the imitation which do not in reality. 
If we saw the whole of anything, or if the object in nature 
were merely one thing, this could not be the case. But 



On Taste. 175 

the fact is, that in the imitation, or in the scientific study 
of any object, we come to an analysis of the details or some 
other abstract view of the subject which we had overlooked 
in a cursory examination, and these may be beautiful or 
curious, though the object in the gross is disgusting, or 
connected with disagreeable or uninteresting associations. 
Thus, in a picture of still life, as a shell or a marble 
chimney-piece, the stains or the gradations of colour may 
be delicate, and subjects for a new and careful imitation, 
though the tout ensemble has not, like a living face, the 
highest beauty of intelligence and expression. Here lie 
and here return the true effects and triumphs of art. It is 
not in making the eye a microscope, but in making it the 
interpreter and organ of all that can touch the soul and 
the affections, that the perfection of fine art is shown. 
Taste, then, does not place in the first rank of merit what 
merely proves difficulty or gratifies curiosity, unless it is 
combined with excellence and sentiment, or the pleasures of 
imagination and the moral sense. In this case the 
pleasure is more than doubled, where not only the imitation 
but the thing imitated, is fine in itself. Hence the pre- 
ference given to Italian over Dutch pictures. 

In respect to the imitation of nature, I would further 
observe that I think Sir Joshua Eeynolds was wrong in 
making the grandeur of the design depend on the omission 
of the details, or the want of finishing. This seems also 
to proceed on the supposition that there cannot be two 
views of nature, but that the details are opposed to and 
inconsistent with an attention to general effect. Now this 
is evidently false, since the two things are undoubtedly 
combined by nature. For instance, the grandeur of design 
or character in the arch of an eyebrow is not injured or 
destroyed in reality by the hair-lines of which it is com- 
posed. Nor is the general form or outline of the eyebrow 
altered in the imitation, whether you make it one rude 
mass or descend into the minutiae of the parts, which are 



176 On Taste. 

arranged in such a manner as to produce the arched form 
and give the particular expression. So the general form of 
a nose, say an aquiline one, is not affected, whether I paint 
a wart which may happen to be on it or not, and so of the 
outline and proportions of the whole face. That is, general 
effect is consistent with individual details, and though these 
are not necessary to it, yet they often assist it, and always 
confirm the sense of verisimilitude. The most finished 
paintings, it is true, are not the grandest in effect ; but 
neither is it true that the greatest daubs are the most 
sublime in character and composition. The best painters 
have combined an eye to the whole with careful finishing, 
and as there is a medium in all things, so the rule here 
seems to be not to go on ad infinitum with the details, but 
to stop when the time and labour necessary seem, in the 
judgment of the artist, to exceed the benefit produced. 

Beauty does not consist in a medium, but in gradation 
or harmony. It has been the fashion of late to pretend to 
refer everything to association of ideas (and it is difficult 
to answer this appeal, since association, by its nature, 
mixes up with everything), but as Hartley has himself 
observed, who carried this principle to the utmost extent, 
and might be supposed -to understand its limits, association 
implies something to be associated, and if there is a 
pleasing association, there must be first something natu- 
rally pleasing from which the secondary satisfaction is 
reflected, or to which it is conjoined. The chirping of 
a sparrow is as much a rural and domestic sound as the 
notes of the robin or the thrush, but it does not serve as a 
point to link other interests to because it wants beauty in 
itself ; and, on the other hand, the song of the nightingale 
draws more attention to itself as a piece of music, and 
conveys less sentiment than the simple note of the 
cuckoo, which, from its solitary singularity, acts as the 
warning voice of time. Those who deny that there is a 



On Taste. 177 

gradation, might as well affirm that sudden and abrupt 
transitions do not make our impressions more distinct as 
that they do not make them more harsh and violent. 
Beauty consists in gradation of colours or symmetry of 
form (conformity) : strength or sublimity arises from the 
sense of power, and is aided by contrast. The ludicrous 
is the incoherent, arising, not from a conflicting power, 
but from weakness or the inability of any habitual 
impulse to sustain itself. The ideal is not confined to 
creation, but takes place in imitation, where a thing is 
subjected to one view, as all the parts of a face to the 
same expression. Invention is only feigning according to 
nature, or with a certain proportion between causes and 
effects. Poetry is infusing the same spirit into a number 
of things, or bathing them all, as it were, in the same 
overflowing sense of delight (making the language also 
soft and musical), as the same torch kindles a number of 
lamps. I think invention is chiefly confined to poetry 
and words or ideas, and has little place in painting or 
concrete imagery, where the want of truth, or of the actual 
object, soon spoils the effect and force of the representa- 
tion. Indeed, I think all genius is, in a great measure, 
national and local, arising out of times and circumstances, 
and being sustained at its full height by these alone, and 
that originality is not a deviation from, but a recurrence 
to nature. Eules and models destroy genius and art ; and 
the excess of the artificial in the end cures itself, for it in 
time becomes so uniform and vapid as to be altogether 
contemptible, and to seek perforce some other outlet or 
purchase for the mind to take hold of. 

The metaphysical theory above premised will account 
not only for the difficulty of imitating nature, but for the 
excellence of various masters, and the diversity and 
popularity of different styles. If the truth of sense and 
nature were one, there could be but one mode of repre- 
senting it, more or less correct. But nature contains an 

N 



178 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

infinite variety of parts, with their relations and significa- 
tions, and different artists take these, and all together do 
not give the whole. Thus Titian coloured, Raphael 
designed, Eubens gave the florid hue and motions, Rem- 
brandt chiaroscuro, &c. ; but none of these reached perfec- 
tion in their several departments, much less with reference 
to the whole circumference of art. It is ridiculous to 
suppose there is but one standard or one style. One artist 
looks at objects with as different an eye from another, as 
he does from the mathematician. It is erroneous to tie 
down individual genius to ideal models. Each person 
should do that, not which is best in itself, even supposing 
this could be known, but that which he can do best, 
which he will find out if left to himself. Spenser could 
not have written Paradise Lost, nor Milton the Faerie 
Queene. Those who aim at faultless regularity will only 
produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection 
except by stealth, and unknown to themselves. Did 
Correggio know what he had done when he had painted 
the " St. Jerome" — or Rembrandt when he made the 
sketch of " Jacob's Dream ? " Oh, no ! Those who are 
conscious of their powers never do anything. 



Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

Because it is taken for granted that they must be amiable 
and interesting, in the first instance, which, like other 
things that are taken for granted, is but indifferently, or 
indeed cannot be, made out at all in the sequel. To put 
it to the proof, to give illustrations of it, would be to 
throw a doubt upon the question. They have only to 
show themselves to ensure conquest. Indeed, the repu- 
tation of their victories goes before them, and is a pledge 
of their success before they even appear. They are, or 
are supposed to be, so amiable, so handsome, so accom- 






Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 179 

plished, so captivating, that all hearts bow before them, 
and all the women are in love with them without knowing 
why or wherefore, except that it is understood that they 
are to be so. All obstacles vanish without a finger lifted 
or a word spoken, and the effect is produced without a 
blow being struck. When there is this imaginary charm 
at work, everything they could do or say must weaken 
the impression, like arguments brought in favour of a 
self-evident truth : they very wisely say or do little or 
nothing, rely on their names and the author's good word, 
look, smile, and are adored ; but to all but the heroines of 
romance and their confidantes, are exceedingly unin- 
teresting and commonplace personages, either great cox- 
combs or wonderfully insipid. When a lover is able to 
look unutterable things which produce the desired effect, 
what occasion for him to exert his eloquence or make an 
impassioned speech, in order to bring about a revolution 
in his favour, which is already accomplished by other less 
doubtful means ? When the impression at first sight is 
complete and irresistible, why throw away any farther 
thoughts or words to make it more so ? This were " to 
gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to smooth the ice, to 
throw a perfume on the violet, or add another hue unto 
the rainbow, or seek with taper-light the beauteous eye of 
Heaven to garnish," which has been pronounced to be 
" wasteful and superfluous excess." Authors and novel- 
writers therefore reserve for their second-rate and less 
prominent characters, the artillery of words, the arts of 
persuasion, and all the unavailing battery of hopeless 
attentions and fine sentiment, which are of no use to the 
more accomplished gallant, who makes his triumphant 
approaches by stolen glances and breathing sighs, and 
whose appearance alone supersedes the disclosure of all 
his other implied perfections and an importunate display 
of a long list of titles to the favour of the fair, which, as 
they are not insisted on, it would be vain and unbecoming 



180 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

to produce to the gaze of the world, or for the edification 
of the curious reader. It is quite enough if the lady is 
satisfied with her choice, and if (as generally happens 
both as a cause and consequence in such cases) the gentle- 
man is satisfied with himself. If he indeed seemed to 
entertain a doubt upon the subject, the spell of his fasci- 
nation would be broken, and the author would be obliged 
to derogate from the beau ideal of his character, and make 
him do something to deserve the good opinion that might 
be entertained of him, and to which he himself had not 
led the way by boundless self-complacency and the 
conscious assurance of infallible success. 

Another circumstance that keeps our novel heroes in 
the background is, that if there was any doubt of their 
success, or they were obliged to employ the ordinary and 
vulgar means to establish their superiority over every one 
else, they would be no longer those ik faultless monsters" 
which it is understood that they must be to fill their part 
in the drama. The discarded or despairing, not the 
favoured lovers, are unavoidably the most interesting 
persons in the story. In fact, the principals are already 
disposed of in the first page ; they are destined for each 
other by an unaccountable and uncontrollable sympathy : 
the ceremony is in a manner over, and they are already 
married people, with all the lawful attributes and indif- 
ference belonging to the character. To produce an 
interest, there must be mixed motives, alternate hope and 
fear, difficulties to struggle with, sacrifices to make ; but 
the true hero of romance is too fine a gentleman to be 
subjected to this rude ordeal or mortifying exposure, 
which devolves upon some much more unworthy and 
unpretending personage. The beauty of the outline must 
not be disturbed by the painful conflicts of passion or the 
strong contrast of light and shade. The taste of the 
heroic cannot swerve for a moment from the object of its 
previous choice, who must never be placed in disdvan- 






Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 181 

tageous circumstances. The top characters occupy a 
certain prescriptive rank in the world of romance, by the 
rules of etiquette and laws of this sort of fictitious com- 
position, reign like princes, and have only to do nothing 
to forfeit their privileges or compromise their supposed 
dignity. 

The heroes of the old romances, the Grand Cyruses, 
the Artamenes, and Oroondates, are in this respect better 
than the moderns. They had their steel helmet and 
plume of feathers, the glittering spear and shield, the 
barbed steed, and the spread banner, and had knightly 
service to perform in joust and tournament, in the field of 
battle or the deep forest, besides the duty which they 
owed to their "mistress' eyebrow," and the favours they 
received at her hands. They were comparatively pic- 
turesque and adventurous personages, and men of action 
in the tented field, and lost all title to the smile of beauty 
if they did not deserve it by feats of prowess, and by the 
valour of their arms. However insipid they might be as 
accepted lovers, in their set speeches and improgressive 
languishments by which they paid their court to their 
hearts' idols, the " fairest of the fair," yet in their cha- 
racter of warriors and heroes, they were men of mettle, 
and had something in them. They did not merely sigh 
and smile and kneel in the presence of their mistresses — 
they had to unhorse their adversaries in combat, to storm 
castles, to vanquish giants, and lead armies. So far, so 
well. In the good old times of chivalry and romance, 
favour was won and maintained by the bold achievements 
and fair fame of the chosen knight, which keeps up a 
show of suspense and dramatic interest, instead of depend- 
ing, as in more effeminate times, on taste, sympathy, and 
a refinement of sentiment and manners, of the delicacy of 
which it is impossible to convey any idea by words or 
actions. Even in the pompous and affected courtship of 
the romances of the seventeenth century (now, alas! 



182 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

exploded) tlie interviews between the lovers are so rare 
and guarded, their union, though agreed upon and in- 
evitable, is so remote, the smile with which the lady- 
regards her sworn champion, though as steady as that of 
one of the fixed stars, is like them so cold, as to give a 
tone of passion and interest to their enamoured flights as 
though they were affected by the chances and changes of 
sublunary affairs. I confess I have read some of these 
fabulous folios formerly with no small degree of delight 
and breathless anxiety, particularly that of Cassandra; 
and would willingly indeed go over it again to catch even 
a faint, a momentary glimpse of the pleasure with which 
I used at one period to peruse its prolix descriptions and 
high-flown sentiments. Not only the Palmerins of Eng- 
land and Amadises of Gaul, who made their way to their 
mistresses' hearts by slaying giants and taming dragons, 
but the heroes of the French romances of intrigue and 
gallantry which succeeded those of necromancy and chi- 
valry, and where the adventurers for the prize have to 
break through the fences of morality and scruples of 
conscience instead of stone-walls and enchantments dire, 
are to be excepted from the censure of downright insipid- 
ity, which attaches to those ordinary drawing-room heroes, 
who are installed in the good graces of their divinities by 
a look, and keep their places there by the force of still 
life ! It is Gray who cries out, " Be mine to read eternal 
new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon ! " I could say 
the same of those of Madame La Fayette and the Duke de 
la Eochefoucault. The Princess of Cleves is a most charm- 
ing work of this kind ; and the Due de Nemours is a great 
favourite with me. He is perhaps the most brilliant 
personage that ever entered upon the tapis of a drawing- 
room, or trifled at a lady's toilette. 

I prefer him, I own, vastly to Eichardson's Sir Charles 
Grandison, whom I look upon as the prince of coxcombs ; 
and so much the more impertinent as he is a moral one. 



Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 183 

His character appears to me " ugly all over with affec- 
tation." There is not a single thing that Sir Charles 
Grandison does or says all through the book from liking 
to any person or object but himself, and with a view to 
answer to a certain standard of perfection for which he 
pragmatically sets up. He is always thinking of himself, 
and trying to show that he is the wisest, happiest, and 
most virtuous person in the whole world. He is (or 
would be thought) a code of Christian ethics — a com- 
pilation and abstract of all gentlemanly accomplishments. 
There is nothing, I conceive, that excites so little sym- 
pathy as this inordinate egotism ; or so much disgust as 
this everlasting self-complacency. Yet his self-admiration, 
brought forward on every occasion as the incentive to 
every action and reflected from all around him, is the 
burden and pivot of the story. " Is not the man Sir 
Charles Grandison?" is what he and all the other 
persons concerned are continually repeating to themselves. 
His preference of the little, insignificant, selfish, affected, 
puritanical Miss Byron, who is remarkable for nothing 
but her conceit of herself and her lover, to the noble 
Clementina, must for ever stamp him for the poltroon and 
blockhead that he was. What a contrast between these 
two females — the one, the favourite heroine, settling her 
idle punctilios and the choice of her ribbons for the 
wedding-day with equal interest, the other, self-devoted, 
broken-hearted, generous, disinterested, pouring out her 
whole soul in the fervent expressions and dying struggles 
of an unfortunate and hopeless affection ! It was im- 
possible indeed for the genius of the author (strive all 
he could) to put the prettiness and coquettish scruples 
of the bride elect upon a par with the eloquent despair 
and impassioned sentiments of her majestic but unsuc- 
cessful rival. Nothing can show more clearly that the 
height of good fortune, and of that conventional fault- 
lessness which is supposed to secure it, is incompatible 



184 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

with any great degree of interest. Lady Clementina 
should have been married to Sir Charles to surfeit her 
of a coxcomb — Miss Byron to Lovelace to plague her 
with a rake ! Have we not sometimes seen such matches ? 
A slashing critic of my acquaintance once observed, that 
Ci Kichardson would be surprised in the next world to 
find Lovelace in Heaven and Grandison in Hell ! " 
Without going this orthodox length, I must say there 
is something in Lovelace's vices more attractive than in 
the other's best virtues. Clarissa's attachment seems as 
natural as Clementina's is romantic. There is a regality 
about Lovelace's manner, and he appears clothed in a 
panoply of wit, gaiety, spirit, and enterprise, that is 
criticism-proof. If he had not possessed these dazzling 
qualities, nothing could have made us forgive for an 
instant his treatment of the spotless Clarissa ; but indeed 
they might be said to be mutually attracted to and ex- 
tinguished in each other's dazzling lustre ! When we 
think of Lovelace and his luckless exploits, we can hardly 
be persuaded at this time of day that he wore a wig. 
Yet that he did so is evident ; for Miss Howe, when she 
gave him that spirited box on the ear, struck the powder 
out of it ! Mr. B. in Pamela has all the insipidity that 
arises from patronising beauty and condescending to 
virtue. Pamela herself is delightfully made out : but she 
labours under considerable disadvantages, and is far from 
a regular heroine. 

Sterne (thank God !) has neither hero nor heroine, and 
he does very well without them. 

Many people find fault with Fielding's Tom Jones as 
gross and immoral. For my part, I have doubts of his 
being so very handsome, from the author's always talking 
about his beauty, and I suspect he was a clown, from 
being constantly assured he was so very genteel. Other- 
wise, I think Jones acquits himself very well both in his 
actions and speeches, as a lover and as a trencher-man, 






Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 185 

whenever he is called upon. Some persons, from their 
antipathy to that headlong impulse, of which Jones was 
the slave, and to that morality of good-nature which in 
him is made a foil to principle, have gone so far as to 
prefer Blifil as the prettier felloio of the two. I certainly 
cannot subscribe to this opinion, which perhaps was never 
meant to have followers, and has nothing but its singu- 
larity to recommend it. Joseph Andrews is a hero of 
the shoulder-knot : it would be hard to canvass his 
pretensions too severely, especially considering what a 
patron he has in Parson Adams. That one character 
would cut up into a hundred fine gentlemen and novel 
heroes! Booth is another of the good-natured tribe, a 
fine man, a very fine man ! But there is a want of spirit 
to animate the well-meaning mass. He hardly deserved 
to have the hashed mutton kept waiting for him. The 
author has redeemed himself in Amelia ; but a heroine 
with a broken nose, and who was a married woman besides, 
must be rendered truly interesting and amiable to make 
u,p for superficial objections. The character of the 
Nobleman in this novel is not insipid. If Fielding 
could have made virtue as admirable as he could make 
vice detestable, he would have been a greater master even 
than he was. I do not understand what those critics 
mean who say he got all his characters out of ale-houses. 
It is true he did some of them. 

Smollett's heroes are neither one thing nor the other ; 
neither very refined nor very insipid. Wilson in 
Humphrey Clinker comes the nearest to the beau ideal of 
this character, the favourite of the novel-reading and 
boarding-school girl. Narcissa and Emilia Gauntlet are 
very charming girls ; and Monimia in Count FatJiom is 
a fine monumental beauty. But perhaps he must be 
allowed to be most at home in Winifred Jenkins ! 

The women have taken this matter up in our own time : 
let us see what they have made of it. Mrs. Badcliffe's 



186 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

heroes and lovers are perfect in their kind ; nobody can 
find any fault with them, for nobody knows anything 
about them. They are described as very handsome, and 
quite unmeaning and inoffensive. 

14 Her heroes have no character at all." 

Theodore, Valancourt, — what delightful names ! and 
there is nothing else to distinguish them by. Perhaps, 
however, this indefiniteness is an advantage. We add 
expression to the inanimate outline, and fill up the blank 
with all that is amiable, interesting, and romantic. A 
long ride without a word spoken, a meeting that comes to 
nothing, a parting look, a moonlight scene, or evening 
skies that paint their sentiments for them better than the 
lovers can do for themselves, farewells too full of anguish, 
deliverances too big with joy to admit of words, suppressed 
sighs, faint smiles, the freshness of the morning, pale 
melancholy, the clash of swords, the clank of chains that 
make the fair one's heart sink within her, these are the 
chief means by which the admired authoress of the 
Romance of tlie Forest and the Mysteries of Udolpho keep's 
alive an ambiguous interest in the bosom of her fastidious 
readers, and elevates the lover into the hero of the fable. 
Unintelligible distinctions, impossible attempts, a delicacy 
that shrinks from the most trifling objection, and an 
enthusiasm that rushes on its fate, such are the charming 
and teazing contradictions that form the flimsy texture 
of a modern romance ! If the lover in such critical cases 
was anything but a lover, he would cease to be the most 
amiable of all characters in the abstract and by way of 
excellence, and would be a traitor to the cause ; to give 
reasons or to descend to particulars, is to doubt the omni- 
potence of love and shake the empire of credulous fancy ; 
a sounding name, a graceful form, are all that is necessary 
to suspend the whole train of tears, sighs, and the softest 
emotions upon ; the ethereal nature of the passion requires 



Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 187 

ethereal food to sustain it; and our youthful hero, in 
order to be perfectly interesting, must be drawn as 
perfectly insipid ! 

I cannot, however, apply this charge to Mrs. Inchbald's 
heroes or heroines. However finely drawn, they are an 
essence of sentiment. Their words are composed of the 
warmest breath, their tears scald, their sighs stifle. Her 
characters seem moulded of a softer clay, the work of 
fairest hands. Miss Milner is enchanting. Doriforth 
indeed is severe, and has a very stately opinion of himself, 
but he has spirit and passion. Lord Norwynne is the 
most unpleasant and obdurate. He seduces by his 
situation and kills by indifference, as is natural in such 
cases But still through all these the fascination of the 
writer's personal feelings never quits you. On the other 
hand, Miss Burney's (Madame D'Arblay's) forte is ridi- 
cule, or an exquisite tact for minute absurdities ; when she 
aims at being fine, she only becomes affected. No one 
had ever much less of the romantic. Lord Orville is a 
condescending suit of clothes; yet, certainly, the sense 
which Evelina has of the honour done her is very prettily 
managed. Sir Clement Willoughby is a much gayer and 
more animated person, though his wit outruns his dis- 
cretion. Young Delville is the hero of punctilio — a 
perfect diplomatist in the art of love-making — and draws 
his parallels and sits down as deliberately before the 
citadel of his mistress' heart, as a cautious general lays 
siege to an impregnable fortress. Cecilia is not behind- 
hand with him in the game of studied cross -purposes and 
affected delays, and is almost the veriest and most pro- 
voking trifler on record. Miss Edge worth, I believe, 
has no heroes. Her trenchant pen cuts away all extrava- 
gance and idle pretence, and leaves nothing but common 
sense, prudence, and propriety behind it, wherever it 
comes. 

I do not apprehend that the heroes of the author of 



188 Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 

Waverley form any very striking exception to the common 
rule. They conform to their designation and follow the 
general law of their being. They are, for the most part, 
very equivocal and undecided personages, who ^receive 
their governing impulse from accident, or are puppets in 
the hands of their mistresses, such as Ivanhoe, Frank 
Osbaldistone, Henry Morton, &c. I do not say that any 
of these are absolutely insipid, but they have in them- 
selves no leading or master-traits, and they are worked 
out of very listless and inert materials, into a degree of 
force and prominence, solely by the genius of the author. 
Instead of acting, they are acted upon, and keep in the 
back-ground and in a neutral posture, till they are 
absolutely forced to come forward, and it is then with a 
very amiable reservation of modest scruples. Does it not 
seem almost, or generally speaking, as if a character, to 
be put in this responsible situation of candidate for the 
highest favour of the public at large, or of the fair in 
particular, who is to conciliate all suffrages and con- 
centrate all interests, must really have nothing in him to 
please or give offence, that he must be left a negative, 
feeble character, without untractable or uncompromising 
points, and with a few slight recommendations and obvious 
good qualities, which every one may be supposed to im- 
prove upon and fill up according to his or her inclination 
or fancy and the model of perfection previously existing 
in the mind ? It is a privilege claimed, no doubt, by the 
fair reader to make out the object of her admiration and 
interest according to her own choice ; and the same 
privilege, if not openly claimed, may be covertly exercised 
by others. We are all fond of our own creations ; and if 
the author does little to his chief character, and allows us 
to have a considerable hand in it, it may not suffer in our 
opinion from this circumstance. In fact, the hero of the 
work is not so properly the chief object in it, as a sort of 
blank left open to the imagination, or a lay-figure on 



Wluj the Heroes of Romances are Insipid. 189 

which the reader disposes whatever drapery he pleases ! 
Of all Sir Walter's male characters the most dashing and 
spirited is the Sultan Saladin. But he is not meant for a 
hero, nor fated to be a lover. He is a collateral and in- 
cidental performer in the scene. His movements therefore 
remain free, and he is master of his own resplendent 
energies, which produce so much the more daring and 
felicitous an effect. So far from being intended to please 
all tastes, or the most squeamish, he is not meant for any 
taste. He has no pretensions, and stands upon the sole 
ground of bis own heroic acts and sayings. The author 
has none of tbe timidity or mawkishness arising from a 
fear of not coming up to his own professions, or to the 
expectations excited in the reader's mind. Any striking 
trait, any interesting exploit, is more than was bargained 
for — is heaped measure, running over. There is no idle, 
nervous apprehension of falling short of perfection, 
arresting the hand or diverting the mind from truth and 
nature. If the Pagan is not represented as a monster and 
barbarian, all the rest is a god-send. Accordingly all is 
spontaneous, bold, and original in this beautiful and 
glowing design, which is as magnificent as it is magnani- 
mous. — Lest I should forget it, I will mention, while I 
am on the subject of Scotch novels, that Mackenzie's 
Man of Feeling is not without interest, but it is an interest 
brought out in a very singular and unprecedented way. 
He not merely says or does nothing to deserve the appro- 
bation of the goddess of his idolatry, but, from extreme 
shyness and sensitiveness, instead of presuming on his 
merits, gets out of her way, and only declares his passion 
on his death-bed. Poor Harley ! — Mr. Godwin's Falk- 
land is a very high and heroic character : he, however, is 
not a love-hero ; and the only part in which an eposide of 
this kind is introduced, is of the most trite and mawkish 
description. The case is different in St. Leon. The 
author's resuscitated hero there quaffs joy, love, and im- 



190 On the Conversation of Lords. 

mortality with a considerable gusto, and with appropriate 
manifestations of triumph. 

As to the heroes of the philosophical school of romance, 
such as G-oethe's Werter, &c., they are evidently out of 
the pale of this reasoning. Instead of being common- 
place and insipid, they are one violent and startling para- 
dox from beginning to end. They run a-tilt at all 
established usages and prejudices, and overset all the 
existing order of society. There is plenty of interest 
here ; and, instead of complaining of a calm, we are borne 
along by a hurricane of passion and eloquence, certainly 
without anything of " temperance that may give it 
smoothness." Schiller's Moor, Kotzebue's heroes, and all 
the other German prodigies are of this stamp. 

Shakspeare's lovers and Boccaccio's I like much : they 
seem to me full of tenderness and manly spirit, and free 
from insipidity and cant. Otway's Jaffier is, however, the 
true woman's man — full of passion and effeminacy, a 
mixture of strength and weakness. Perhaps what I have 
said above may suggest the true reason and apology for 
Milton's having unwittingly made Satan the hero of 
Paradise Lost. He suffers infinite losses, and makes the 
most desperate efforts to recover or avenge them ; and it 
is the struggle with fate and the privation of happiness 
that sharpens our desires, or enhances our sympathy with 
good or evil. We have little interest in unalterable 
felicity, nor can we join with heart and soul in the endless ■ 
symphonies and exalting hallelujahs of the spirits of the 
blest. The remorse of a fallen spirit, or " tears such as 
angels shed," touch us more nearly. 



On the Conversation of Lords. 

"An infinite deal of nothing." — Shakespeare. 

The conversation of lords is very different from that of 
authors. Mounted on horseback, they stick at nothing 



On the Conversation of Lords. 191 

in the chase, and clear every obstacle with flying leaps, 
while we poor devils have no chance of keeping up with 
them with our clouten shoes and long hunting-poles. 
They have all the benefit of education, society, confidence ; 
they read books, purchase pictures, breed horses, learn to 
ride, dance, and fence, look after their estates, travel 
abroad : authors have none of these advantages, or inlets 
of knowledge, to assist them, except one, reading; and 
this is still more impoverished and clouded by the painful 
exercise of their own thoughts. The knowledge of the great 
has a character of wealth and property in it, like the 
stores of the rich merchant or manufacturer, who lays his 
hands on all within his reach : the understanding of the 
student is like the workshop of the mechanic, who has 
nothing but what he himself creates. How difficult is the 
production, how small the display in the one case com- 
pared to the other! Most of Correggio's designs are 
contained in one small room at Parma : how different from 
the extent and variety of some hereditary and princely 
collections ! 

The human mind has a trick (probably a very natural 
and consoling one) of striking a balance between the 
favours of wisdom and of fortune, and of making a gra- 
tuitous and convenient foil to another. Whether this is 
owing to envy or to a love of justice, I will not say ; but 
whichever it is owing to, I must own I do not think it 
well founded. A scholar is without money : therefore (to 
make the odds even) we argue (not very wisely) that a 
rich man must be without ideas. This does not follow : 
" the wish is father to that thought ;" and the thought is 
a spurious one. We might as well pretend, that because 
a man has the advantage of us in height, he is not strong 
or in good health ; or because a woman is handsome, she 
is not at the same time young, accomplished and well- 
bred. Our fastidious self-love or our rustic prejudices 
may revolt at the accumulation of advantages in others ; 



192 On the Conversation of Lords. 

but we must learn to submit to the mortifying truth, 
which every day's experience points out, with what grace 
we may. There were those who grudged to Lord Byron 
the name of a poet because he was of noble birth ; as he 
himself could not endure the praises bestowed upon 
AVordsworth, whom he considered as a clown. He 
carried this weakness so far, that he even seemed to regard 
it as a piece of presumption in Shakspeare to be preferred 
before him as a dramatic author, and contended that 
Milton's writing an epic poem and the Answer to Salmasius 
was entirely owing to vanity — so little did he relish the 
superiority of the old blind school-master. So it is that 
one party would arrogate every advantage to themselves, 
while those on the other side would detract from all in 
their rivals that they do not themselves possess. Some 
will not have the statue painted : others can see no beauty 
in the clay-model. 

The man of rank and fortune, besides his chance for the 
common or (now and then) an uncommon share of wit and 
understanding, has it in his power to avail himself of 
everything that is to be taught of art and science ; he has 
tutors and valets at his beck ; he may master the dead 
languages, he must acquire the modern ones ; he moves in 
the highest circles, and may descend to the lowest ; the 
paths of pleasure, of ambition, of knowledge, are open to 
him ; he may devote himself to a particular study, or skim 
the cream of all ; he may read books or men or things, as 
he finds most convenient or agreeable ; he is not forced to 
confine his attention to some one dry, uninteresting pur- 
suit ; he has a single hobby, or half a dozen ; he is not 
distracted by care, by poverty and want of leisure ; he has 
every opportunity and facility afforded him for acquiring 
various accomplishments of body or mind, and every en- 
couragement, from confidence and success, for making an 
imposing display of them % , he may laugh with the gay, 
jest with the witty, argue with the wise ; he has been in 






On the Conversation of Lords. 193 

courts, in colleges, and camps, is familiar with playhouses 
and taverns, with the riding-house and the dissecting-room, 
has been present at or taken part in the debates of both 
Houses of Parliament, was in the 0. P. row, and is deep 
in the Fancy, understands the broadsword exercise, is a 
connoisseur in regimentals, plays the whole game at whist, 
is a tolerable proficient at backgammon, drives four-in- 
hand, skates, rows, swims, shoots ; knows the different 
sorts of same and modes of agriculture in the different 
counties of England, the manufactures and commerce of 
the different towns, the politics of Europe, the campaigns 
in Spain, has the Gazette, the newspapers, and reviews at 
his fingers' ends, has visited the finest scenes of Nature 
and beheld the choicest works of Art, and is in society 
where he is continually hearing or talking of all these 
things ; and yet we are surprised to find that a person so 
circumstanced and qualified has any ideas to communicate 
or words to express himself, and is not, as by patent and 
prescription he was bound to be, a mere well-dressed fop 
of fashion or a booby lord ! It would be less remarkable 
if a poor author, who has none of this giddy range and 
scope of information, who pores over the page till it fades 
from his sight, and refines upon his style till the words 
stick in his throat, should be dull as a beetle and mute as 
a fish, instead of spontaneously pouring out a volume of 
wit and wisdom on every subject that can be started. 

An author lives out of the world, or mixes chiefly with 
those of his own class ; which renders him pedantic and 
pragmatical, or gives him a reserved, hesitating, and inter- 
dieted manner. A lord or gentleman-commoner goes into 
the world, and this imparts that fluency, spirit, and fresh- 
ness to his conversation, which arises from the circulation of 
ideas and from the greater animation and excitement of un- 
restrained intercourse. An author's tongue is tied for want 
of somebody to speak to : his ideas rust and become obscured, 
from not being brought out in company and exposed to 

o 



194 On the Conversation of Lords. 

the gaze of instant admiration. A lord has always some 
one at hand on whom he can " bestow his tediousness," 
and grows voluble, copious, inexhaustible in consequence : 
his wit is polished, and the flowers of his oratory expanded 
by his smiling commerce with the world, like the figures 
in tapestry, that after being thrust into a corner and folded 
up in closets, are displayed on festival and gala days. 
Again, the man of fashion and fortune reduces many of 
those arts and mysteries to practice, of which the scholar 
gains all his knowledge from books and vague description. 
Will not the rules of architecture find a readier reception 
and sink deeper into the mind of the proprietor of a noble 
mansion, or of him who means to build one, than of the 
half-starved occupier of a garret ? Will not the political 
economist's insight into Mr. Bicardo's doctrine of Eent, or 
Mr. Malthus's theory of Population, be vastly quickened 
by the circumstance of his possessing a large landed estate 
and having to pay enormous poor-rates ? And, in general, 
is it not self-evident that a man's knowledge of the true 
interests of the country will be enlarged just in proportion 
to the stake he has in it ? A person may have read 
accounts of different cities and the customs of different 
nations : but will this give him the same accurate idea of 
the situation of celebrated places, of the aspect and 
manners of the inhabitants, or the same lively impulse 
and ardour and fund of striking particulars in expatiating 
upon them, as if he had run over half the countries of 
Europe, for no other purpose than to satisfy his own 
curiosity, and excite that of others on his return ? I 
many years ago looked into the Duke of Newcastle's 1 
Treatise on Horsemanship ; all I remember of it is some 
quaint cuts of the Duke and his riding-master introduced 
to illustrate the lessons. Had I myself possessed a stud 
of Arabian coursers, with grooms and a master of the 

1 William, Duke of Newcastle, husband of the poetical Duchess. 
—Ed. 



On the Conversation of Lords. 195 

horse to assist me in reducing these precepts to practice, 
they would have made a stronger impression on my mind ; 
and what interested myself from vanity or habit, I could 
have made interesting to others. I am sure I could have 
learnt to ride the Great Horse, and do twenty other things, 
in the time I have employed in endeavouring to make 
something out of nothing, or in conning the same problem 
fifty times over, as monks count over their beads ! I have 
occasionally in my life bought a few prints, and hung 
them up in my room with great satisfaction ; but is it to 
be supposed possible, from this casual circumstance, that 
I should compete in taste or in the knowledge of vertu 
with a peer of the realm, who has in his possession the 
costly designs, or a wealthy commoner, who has spent 
half his fortune in learning to distinguish copies from 
originals? "A question not to be asked!" Nor is it 
likely that the having dipped into the Memoirs of Count 
Grammont, or of Lady Vane in Peregrine Pickle, should 
enable any one to sustain a conversation on subjects of 
love and gallantry with the same ease, grace, brilliancy, 
and spirit as the having been engaged in a hundred adven- 
tures of one's own, or heard the scandal and tittle-tattle of 
fashionable life for the last thirty years canvassed a 
hundred times. Books may be manufactured from other 
books by some dull, mechanical process : it is conversa- 
tion and the access to the best society that alone fit us for 
society ; or " the act and practique part of life must be 
the mistress to our theorique," before we can hope to shine 
in mixed company, or bend our previous knowledge to 
ordinary and familiar uses out of that plaster-cast mould 
which is as brittle as it is formal ! 

There is another thing which tends to produce the same 
effect, viz., that lords and gentlemen seldom trouble them- 
selves about the knotty and uninviting parts of a subject : 
they leave it to ' ; the dregs of earth " to drain the cup or 
find the bottom. They are attracted by the frothy and 



196 On the Conversation of Lords. 

sparkling. If a question puzzles them, or is not likely to 
amuse others, they leave it to its fate, or to those whose 
business it is to contend with difficulty, and to pursue truth 
for its own sake. They string together as many available 
off -hand topics as they can procure for love or money ; 
and, aided by a good person or address, sport them with 
very considerable effect at the next rout or party they go 
to. They do not bore you with pedantry, or tease you 
with sophistry. Their conversation is not made up of moot- 
points or choke-pears. They do not willingly forego " the 
feast of reason or the flow of soul " to grub up some 
solitary truth or dig for hidden treasure. They are 
amateurs, not professors ; the patrons, not the drudges of 
knowledge. An author loses half his life, and stultifies 
his faculties, in hopes to find out something which perhaps 
neither he nor any one else can ever find out. For this 
he neglects half a hundred acquirements, half a hundred 
accomplishments. Aut Ccesar aid nihil. He is proud of the 
discovery or of the fond pursuit of one truth — a lord is vain 
of a thousand ostentatious commonplaces. If the latter 
ever devotes himself to some crabbed study, or sets about 
finding out the longitude, he is then to be looked upon 
as a humorist if he fails — a genious if he succeeds — and 
no longer belongs to the class I have been speaking of. 

Perhaps a multiplicity of attainments and pursuits is 
not very favourable to their selectness ; as a local and 
personal acquaintance with objects of imagination takes 
away from, instead of adding to, their romantic interest. 
Familiarity is said to breed contempt ; or at any rate, 
the being brought into contact with places, persons, or 
things that we have hitherto only heard or read of, 
removes a certain aerial, delicious veil of refinement from 
them, and strikes at that ideal abstraction which is the 
charm and boast of a life conversant chiefly with books. 
The huddling a number of tastes and studies together 
tends to degrade and vulgarise each, and to give a crude, 



On the Conversation of Lords. 197 

uneoncocted, dissipated turn to the mind. Instead of 
stuffing it full of gross, palpable, immediate objects of 
excitement, a wiser plan would be to leave something in 
reserve, something hovering in airy space to draw our 
attention out of ourselves, to excite hope, curiosity, 
wonder, and never to satisfy it. The great art is not 
to throw a glare of light upon all objects, or to lay the 
whole extended landscape bare at one view ; but so 
to manage as to see the more amiable side of things, 
and through the narrow vistas and loop-holes of retreat — 

" Catch glimpses that may make us less forlorn." 

I hate to annihilate air and distance by the perpetual 
use of an opera-glass, to run everything into foreground, 
and to interpose no medium between the thought and the 
object. The breath of words stirs and plays idly with 
the gossamer web of fancy ; the touch of things destroys 
it. I have seen a good deal of authors ; and I believe 
that they (as well as I) would quite as lieve I had not. 
Places I have seen, too, that did not answer my ex- 
pectation. Pictures, (that is, some few of them) are the 
only things that are the better for our having studied 
them " face to face, not in a glass darkly," and that in 
themselves surpass any description we can give, or any 
notion we can form of them. But I do not think 
seriously, after all, that those who possess are the best 
judges of them. They become furniture, property in 
their hands. The purchasers look to the price they will 
fetch, or turn to that which they have cost. They 
consider not beauty or expression, but the workmanship, 
the date, the pedigree, the school — something that will 
figure in the description in a catalogue or in a puff in a 
newspaper. They are blinded by silly admiration of 
whatever belongs to themselves, and warped so as to eye 
" with jealous leer malign " all that is not theirs. Taste 
is melted down in the crucible of avarice and vanity, and 



198 On the Conversation of Lords. 

leaves a wretched caput mortuum of pedantry and conceit. 
As to books, they " best can feel them who have read 
them most," and who rely on them for their only support 
and their only chance of distinction. They most keenly 
relish the graces of style who have in vain tried to make 
them their own : they alone understand the value of a 
thought who have gone through the trouble of thinking. 
The privation of other advantages is not a clear loss, 
if it is counterbalanced by a proportionable concentration 
and unity of interest in what is left. The love of letters 
is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling 
passion is the love of fame. A member of the Eoxburghe 
Club has a certain work (let it be the Decameron of 
Boccaccio) splendidly bound, and in the old quarto edition, 
we will say. In this not only his literary taste is 
gratified, but the pride of property, the love of external 
elegance and decoration. The poor student has only a 
paltry and somewhat worn copy of the same work (or 
perhaps only a translation) which he picked up at a stall, 
standing out of a shower of rain. What then ! has not 
the Noble Virtuoso doubly the advantage, and a much 
higher pleasure in the perusal of the work? No; for 
these are vulgar and mechanical helps to the true en- 
joyment of letters. From all this mock-display and idle 
parade of binding and arms and dates, his unthought-of 
rival is precluded, and sees only the talismanic words, 
feels only the spirit of the author, and in that author 
reads " with sparkling eyes " 

" His title to a mansion in the skies." 

Oh ! divine air of learning, fanned by the undying breath 
of genius, still let me taste thee, free from all adventitious 
admixtures, 

" Pure in the last recesses of the soul !" 

We are far, at present, from the style of Swift's Polite 
Conversation. The fashionable tone has quite changed in 



On the Conversation of Lords. 199 

this respect, and almost gone into the opposite extreme. 
At that period the polite world seems to have been nearly 
at a stand, in a state of intellectual abeyance ; or, in the 
interval between the disuse of chivalrous exercises and 
the introduction of modern philosophy, not to have known 
how to pass its time, and to have sunk into the most 
commonplace formality and unmeaning apathy. But lo ! 
at a signal given, or rather prompted by that most 
powerful of all calls, the want of something to do, all 
rush into the lists, having armed themselves anew with 
the shining panoply of science and of letters, with an 
eagerness, a perseverance, a dexterity, and a success, that 
are truly astonishing. The higher classes have of late 
taken the lead almost as much in arts as they formerly 
did in arms, when the last was the only prescribed mode 
of distinguishing themselves from the rabble, whom they 
treated as serfs and churls. The prevailing cue at present 
is to regard mere authors (who are not also of gentle 
blood) as dull, illiterate, poor creatures, a sort of pre- 
tenders to taste and elegance, and adventurers in intellect. 
The true adepts in black-letter are knights of the shire : 
the sworn patentees of Parnassus are Peers of the Eealm. 
Not to pass for a literary quack, you must procure a 
diploma from the College of Heralds. A dandy conceals 
a bibliomanist : our belles are bluestockings. The Press 
is so entirely monopolised by beauty, birth, or importance 
in the State, 1 that an author by profession resigns the 
field to the crowd of well-dressed competitors, out of 
modesty or pride ; is fain to keep out of sight — 

" Or write by stealth, and blush to find it fame !" 

Lord Byron used to boast that he could bring forward 

1 This was written when the mania for fashionable novels by 
Noble Authors was at its height. — Ed. of Sketches and Essays, 1839. 
See the criticism on Disraeli's Vivian Grey by the author, in the 
Examiner for 1827, under the title of the Dandy School. 



200 On the Conversation of Lords. 

a dozen young men of fashion who would beat all the 
regular authors at their several weapons of wit or 
argument ; and though I demur to the truth of the 
assertion, yet there is no saying till the thing is tried. 
Young gentlemen make very pretty sparrers, but are not 
the "ugliest customers" when they take off the gloves. 
Lord Byron himself was in his capacity of author an out- 
and-outer ; but then it was at the expense of other things, 
for he could not talk except in short sentences and 
sarcastic allusions, he had no ready resources ; all his 
ideas moulded themselves into stanzas, and all his ardour 
was carried off in rhyme. The channel of his pen was 
worn deep by habit and power ; the current of his 
thoughts flowed strong in it, and nothing remained to 
supply the neighbouring flats and shallows of miscel- 
laneous conversation, but a few sprinklings of wit or 
gushes of spleen. An intense purpose concentrated and 
gave a determined direction to his energies, that " held 
on their way, unslacked of motion." The track of his 
genius was like a volcanic eruption, a torrent of burning 
lava, full of heat and splendour and headlong fury, that 
left all dry, cold, hard, and barren behind it ! To say 
nothing of a host of female authors, a bright galaxy above 
our heads, there is no young lady of fashion in the present 
day, scarce a boarding-school girl, that is not mistress of 
as many branches of knowledge as would set up half a 
dozen literary hacks. In lieu of the sampler and the 
plain-stitch of our grandmothers, they have so many hours 
for French, so many for Italian, so many for English 
grammar and composition, so many for geography and 
the use of the globes, so many for history, so many for 
botany, so many for painting, music, dancing, riding, &c. 
One almost wonders how so many studies are crammed 
into the twenty-four hours ; or how such fair and delicate 
creatures can master them without spoiling the smoothness 
of their brows, the sweetness of their tempers, or the 



On the Conversation of Lords. 201 

graceful simplicity of their manners. A girl learns 
French (not # only to read, but to speak it) in a few 
months, while a boy is as many years in learning to 
construe Latin. Why so ? Chiefly because the one is 
treated as a bagatelle or agreeable relaxation ; the other as 
a serious task or necessary evil. Education, a very few 
years back, was looked upon as a hardship, and enforced 
by menaces and blows, instead of being carried on (as 
now) as an amusement and under the garb of pleasure, 
and with the allurements of self-love. It is found that 
the products of the mind flourish better and shoot up 
more quickly in the sunshine of good-humour and in the 
air of freedom, than under the frowns of sullenness, or 
the shackles of authority. " The labour we delight in 
physics pain." The idlest people are not those who have 
most leisure-time to dispose of as they choose : take away 
the feeling of compulsion, and you supply a motive for 
application, by converting a toil into a pleasure. This 
makes nearly all the difference between the hardest 
drudgery and the most delightful exercise — not the 
degree of exertion, but the motive and the accompanying 
sensation. Learning does not gain proselytes by the 
austerity or awfulness of its looks. By representing 
things as so difficult, and as exacting such dreadful 
sacrifices, and to be acquired under such severe penalties, 
we not only deter the student from the attempt, but lay 
a dead- weight upon the imagination, and destroy that 
cheerfulness and alacrity of spirit which is the spring of 
thought and action. But to return. An author by 
profession reads a few works that he intends to criticise 
and cut up "for a consideration;" a blue-stocking by 
profession reads all that come out to pass the time or 
satisfy her curiosity. The author has something to say 
about Fielding, Eichardson, or even the Scotch novels ; 
but he is soon distanced by the fair critic, or overwhelmed 
with the contents of whole Circulating Libraries poured 



202 On the Conversation of Lords. 

out upon his head without stint or intermission. He 
reads for an object, and to live ; she for the sake of 
reading, or to talk. Be this as it may, the idle reader at 
present reads twenty-times as many books as the learned 
one. The former skims the surface of knowledge, and 
carries away the striking points and a variety of amusing 
detail, while the latter reserves himself for great occasions, 
or perhaps does nothing under the pretence of having so 
much to do. 

"From every work he challenges essoin, 
For contemplation's sake." 

The literati of Europe threaten at present to become the 
Monks of letters, and from having taken up learning as a 
profession, to live on the reputation of it. As gentlemen 
have turned authors, authors seem inclined to turn gentle- 
men ; and enjoying the otium cum dignitate, to be much too 
refined and abstracted to condescend to the subordinate or 
mechanical parts of knowledge. They are too wise in 
general to be acquainted with anything in particular; 
and remain in a proud and listless ignorance of all that 
is within the reach of the vulgar. They are not, as of old, 
walking libraries or Encyclopaedias, but rather certain 
faculties of the mind personified. They scorn the material 
and instrumental branches of inquiry, the husk and bran, 
and affect only the fine flour of literature — they are only 
to be called in to give the last polish to style, the last 
refinement to thought. They leave it to their drudges, 
the Reading Public, to accumulate the facts, to arrange 
the evidence, to make out the data, and like great painters 
whose pupils have got in the ground-work and the estab- 
lished proportions of a picture, come forward to go over 
the last thin glazing of the colours, or throw in the finer 
touches of expression. On my excusing myself to North- 
cote for some blunder in history, by saying, " I really had 
not time to read," — he said, " No, but you have time to 
write !" And once a celebrated critic taking me to task 



On the Conversation of Lords. 203 

as to the subject of my pursuits, and receiving regularly 
the same answer to his queries, that I knew nothing of 
chemistry, nothing of astronomy, of botany, of law, of 
politics, &c, at last exclaimed, somewhat impatiently, 
"What the devil is it, then, you do know ?" I laughed, 
and was not very much disconcerted at the reproof, as it 
was just. 

Modern men of letters may be divided into three classes ; 
the mere scholar or hook-worm, all whose knowledge is 
taken from books, and who may be passed by as an obso- 
lete character, little inquired after — the literary hack or 
coffee-house politician, who gets his information mostly 
from hearsay, and who makes some noise indeed, but the 
echo of it does not reach beyond his own club or circle — and 
the man of real or of pretended genius, who aims to draw 
upon his own resources of thought or feeling, and to throw 
a new light upon nature and books. This last personage 
(if he acts up to his supposed character) has too much to 
do to lend himself to a variety of pursuits, or to lay him- 
self out to please in all companies. He has a task in hand, 
a vow to perform ; and he cannot be diverted from it by 
incidental or collateral objects. All the time that he does 
not devote to this paramount duty, he should have to 
himself, to repose, to lie fallow, to gather strength and 
recruit himself. A boxer is led into the lists that he may 
not waste a particle of vigour needlessly ; and a leader in 
Parliament, on the day that he is expected to get up a 
grand attack or defence, is not to be pestered with the 
ordinary news of the day. So an author (who is, or would 
be thought original) has no time for spare accomplishments 
or ornamental studies. All that he intermeddles with must 
be marshalled to bear upon his purpose. He must be 
acquainted with books and the thoughts of others, but 
only so far as to assist him on his way, and " to take pro- 
gression from them." He starts from the point where they 
left off. All that does not aid him in his new career goes 



204 On the Conversation of Lords. 

for nothing, is thrown out of the account, or is a useless 
and splendid incumbrance. Most of his time he passes 
in brooding over some wayward hint or suggestion of a 
thought, nor is he bound to give any explanation of what 
he does with the rest. He tries to melt down truth into 
essences — to express some fine train of feeling, to solve 
some difficult problem, to start what is new, or to perfect 
what is old ; in a word, not to do what others can do (which 
in the division of mental labour he holds to be unneces- 
sary), but to do what they all with their joint efforts can- 
not do. For this he is in no hurry, and must have the 
disposal of his leisure and the choice of his subject. The 
public can wait. He deems with a living poet, who is an 
example of his own doctrine — 

" That there are powers 



Which of themselves our minds impress ; 
That we can feed this mind of ours 
In a wise passiveness." 

Or I have sometimes thought that the dalliance of the 
mind with Fancy or with Truth might be described almost 
in the words of Andrew Marvell's address " To his Coy 
Mistress :" 

" Had we but world enough and time, 
This toying, lady,' were no crime ; 
We would sit down, and think which way 
To walk and pass our love's long day. 
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side 
Shouldst rubies rind : I by the tide 
Of Humber would complain. I would 
Love you ten ye'ars before the flood ; 
And you should, if you please, refuse 
Till the conversion of the Jews. 
My contemplative love should grow 
Vaster than empires, and more slow. 
An hundred j: ars should go to praise 
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze ; 
Two hundred to adore each breast, 
But tiiirtv thousand to the rest ; 



On the Conversation of Lords. 205 

An age at least to every part, 

And the last age should show your heart : 

For, lady, you deserve this state ; 

Nor would I love at lower rate !" 

The aspiring poet or prose-writer undertakes to do a cer- 
tain thing ; and if he succeeds, it is enough. While he is 
intent upon that or asleep, others may amuse themselves 
how they can with any topic that happens to be afloat, and 
all the eloquence they are masters of, so that they do not 
disturb the champion of truth, or the proclaim er of beauty 
to the world. The Conversation of Lords, on the contrary, 
is to this like a newspaper to a book — the latter treats well 
or ill of one subject, and leads to a conclusion on one 
point ; the other is made up of all sorts of things jumbled 
together, debates in parliament, law reports, plays, operas, 
concerts, routs, levees, fashions, auctions, the last fight, 
foreign news, deaths, marriages, and crim.-cous., bank- 
ruptcies, and quack medicines ; and a large allowance is 
frequently to be made, besides the natural confusion of the 
subjects, for cross-readings in the speaker's mind I 1 Or, to 
take another illustration, fashionable conversation has 

1 As when a person asks you " whether you do not find a strong 
resemblance between Bubens's pictures and Quarles's poetry ?" — 
which is owing to the critic's having lately been at Antwerp and 
bought an edition of Quarles's ' Emblems. 7 Odd combinations must 
take place where a number of ideas are brought together, with only 
a thin, hasty partition between them, and without a sufficient 
quantity of judgment to discriminate. An Englishman, of some 
apparent consequence, passing by the St. Peter Martyr of Titian at 
Venice, observed, " It was a copy of the same subject by Domeni- 
chino at Bologna." This betrayed an absolute ignorance both of 
Titian and of Domenichino, and of the whole world of art ; yet, 
unless I had also seen the St. Peter at Bologna, this connoisseur 
would have had the advantage of me, two to one, and might have 
disputed the precedence of the two pictures with me, but that 
chronology would have come to my aid. Thus persons who travel 
from place to place, and roam from subject to subject, make up by 
the extent and discursiveness of their knowledge for the want of 
truth and refinement in their conception of the objects of it. 



200 On the Conversation of Lords. 

something theatrical or melo-dramatic in it ; it is got up 
for immediate effect, it is calculated to make a great dis- 
play, there is a profusion of paint, scenery, and dresses, 
the music is loud, there are banquets and processions, you 
have the dancers from the Opera, the horses from Astley's, 
and the elephant from Exeter 'Change, the stage is all life, 
bustle, noise, and glare, the audience brilliant and de- 
lighted, and the whole goes off in a blaze of phosphorus ; 
but the dialogue is poor, the story improbable, the critics 
shake their heads in the pit, and the next day the piece is 
damned ! 

In short, a man of rank and fortune takes the adven- 
titious and ornamental part of letters, the obvious, the 
popular, the fashionable, that serves to amuse at the time, 
or minister to the cravings of vanity, without laying a very 
heavy tax on his own understanding, or the patience of his 
hearers. He furnishes his mind as he does his house, with 
what is showy, striking, and of the newest pattern : he 
mounts his hobby as he does his horse, which is brought to 
his door for an airing, and which (should it prove restive 
or sluggish) he turns away for another ; or, like a child at a 
fair, gets into a round-about of knowledge, till his head be- 
comes giddy, runs from sight to sight, from booth to booth, 
and, like the child, goes home loaded with trinkets, gew- 
gaws and rattles. He does not pore and pine over an idea 
(like some poor hypochondriac) till it becomes impractic- 
able, unsociable, incommunicable, absorbed in mysticism, 
and lost in minuteness : he is not upon oath never to utter 
anything but oracles, but rattles away in a fine careless, 
hair-brained, dashing manner, hit or miss, and succeeds 
the better for it. Nor does he prose over the same stale 
round of politics and the state of the nation (w T ith the 
coffee-house politician), but launches out with freedom and 
gaiety into whatever has attraction and interest in it, 
" runs the great circle, and is still at home." He is 
inquisitive, garrulous, credulous, sanguine, florid — neither 









On the Conversation of Lords. 207 

pedantic nor vulgar. Neither is he intolerant, exclusive, 
bigoted to one set of opinions or one class of individuals. 
He clothes an abstract theory with illustrations from his 
own experience and observation, hates what is dry and 
dull, and throws in an air of high health, buoyant spirits, 
fortune and splendid connections to give animation and 
vividness to what perhaps might otherwise want it. He 
selects what is palpable without being gross or trivial, 
lends it colour from the flush of success, and elevation 
from the distinctions of rank. He runs on and never stops 
for an answer, rather dictating to others than endeavour- 
ing to ascertain their opinions, solving his own questions, 
improving upon their hints, and bearing down or pre- 
cluding opposition by a good-natured loquacity or stately 
dogmatism. All this is perhaps more edifying as a subject 
of speculation than delightful in itself. Shakspeare says, 
" A man's mind is parcel of his fortunes" — and I think 
the inference will be borne out in the present case. I 
should guess that in the prevailing tone of fashionable 
society or aristocratic literature would be found all that 
variety, splendour, facility, and startling effect which cor- 
responds with external wealth, magnificence of appearance, 
and a command of opportunity ; while there would be 
wanting whatever depends chiefly on intensity of pursuit, 
on depth of feeling, and on simplicity and independence 
of mind joined with straitened fortune. Prosperity is a 
great teacher ; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers 
the mind ; privation trains and strengthens it. Accord- 
ingly, we find but one really great name (Bacon) in this 
rank of English society, where superiority is taken for 
granted, and reflected from outward circumstances. The 
rest are in the second class. Lord Bolingbroke, whom 
Pope idolised (and it pains me that all his idols are not 
mine), was a boastful, empty mouther ! I never knew till 
the other day, that Lord Bolingbroke was the model on 
which Mr. Pitt formed himself. He was his Magnus 



208 On the Conversation of Lords. 

Apollo; and no wonder. The late Minister used to 
lament it as the great desideratum of English literature, 
that there was no record anywhere existing of his speeches 
as they were spoken, and declared that he would give any 
price for one of them, reported as speeches were reported 
in the newspapers in our time. Being asked which he 
thought the best of his written productions, he would 
answer, raising his eyebrows and deepening the tones of 
his voice to a sonorous bass — "Why, undoubtedly, Sir, 
the Letter to Sir William Wyndkam is the most masterly of 
all his writings, and the first composition for wit and 
eloquence in the English language ;" — and then he would 
give his reasons at great length and con amore, and say 
that Junius had formed himself entirely upon it. Lord 
Bolingbroke had. it seems, a house next door to one 
belonging to Lord Chatham at Walham Green ; and as 
the gardens joined, they could hear Lord Bolingbroke 
walking out with the company that came to see him in his 
retirement, and elaborately declaiming politics to the old 
lords and statesmen that were with him, and philosophy 
to the younger ones. Pitt learned this story from his 
father when a boy. This account, interesting in itself, 
was to me the more interesting and extraordinary, as it 
had always appeared to me that Mr. Pitt was quite an 
original, sui generis — 

" As if a man were author of himself, 
And own'd no other kin ;" 

that so far from having a model or idol that he looked up 
to and grounded himself upon, he had neither admiration 
nor consciousness of anything existing out of himself, and 
that he lived solely in the sound of his own voice and 
revolved in the circle of his own hollow and artificial 
periods. I have it from the same authority that he thought 
Cobbett the best writer and Home Tooke the cleverest 
man of the day. His hatred of Wyndham was excessive 






The Letter -Bell 209 

and mutual. Perhaps it may be said that Lord Chatham 
was a first-rate man in his way, and I incline to think it 
but he was a self-made man, bred in a camp, not in a court, 
and his rank was owing to his talents. 1 



The Letter-Bell 

Complaints are frequently made of the vanity and short- 
ness of human life, when, if we examine its smallest 
details, they present a world by themselves. The most 
trifling objects, retraced with the eye of memory, assume 
the vividness, the delicacy, and importance of insects 
seen through a magnifying glass. There is no end of 
the brilliancy or the variety. The habitual feeling 
of the love of life may be compared to " one entire and 
perfect chrysolite," which, if analysed, breaks into a thou- 
sand shining fragments. Ask the sum-total of the value 
of human life, and we are puzzled with the length of the 
account, and the multiplicity of items in it : take any one 
of them apart, and it is wonderful what matter for reflec- 
tion will be found in it ! As I write this, the Letter-Bell 
passes ; it has a lively, pleasant sound with it, and not 
only fills the street with its importunate clamour, but 
rings clear through the length of many half- forgotten 
years. It strikes upon the ear, it vibrates to the brain, it 
wakes me from the dream of time, it flings me back upon 
my first entrance into life, the period of rdy first coming 
up to town, when all around was strange, uncertain, ad- 

1 There are few things more contemptible than the conversation 
of mere men of the town. It is made up of the technicalities and 
cant of all professions, without the spirit or knowledge of any. It is 
flashy and vapid, or is like the rinsings of different liquors at a 
night-cellar instead of a bottle of fiue old port. It is without body 
or clearness, and a heap of affectation. In fact, I am very much of 
the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman who owned that " he 
preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the most brilliant 
conversation it had ever fallen to his lot to hear !" 

P 



210 Tlie Letter-Bell 






verse — a hubbub of confused noises, a chaos of shifting 
objects — and when this sound alone, startling me with the 
recollection of a letter I had to send to the friends I had 
lately left, brought me as it were to myself, made me feel 
that I had links still connecting me with the universe, and 
gave me hope and patience to persevere. At that loud- 
tinkling, interrupted sound, the long line of blue hills 
near the place where I was brought up waves in the hori- 
zon, 1 a golden sunset hovers over them, the dwarf-oaks 
rustle their red leaves in the evening-breeze, and the road 
from Wem to Shrewsbury, by which I first set-out on 
my journey through life, stares me in the face as plain, 
but, from time and change, not less visionary and mys- 
terious than the pictures in the Pilgrims Progress. Or 
if the Letter-Bell does not lead me a dance into the 
country, it fixes me in the thick of my town recollections, 
I know not how long ago. It was a kind of alarm to break 
off from my work when there happened to be company to 
dinner or when I was going to the play. That was going 
to the play, indeed, when I went twice a year, and had not 
been more than half a dozen times in my Hfe. Even the 
idea that any one else in the house was going, was a sort 
of reflected enjoyment, and conjured up a lively anticipa- 
tion of the scene. I remember a Miss D , a maiden 

lady from Wales (who in her youth was to have been 
married to an earl), tantalised me greatly in this way, by 
talking all day of going to see Mrs. Siddons' " airs and 
graces" at night in some favourite part; and when the 
Letter-Bell announced that the time was approaching, and 
its last receding sound lingered on the ear, or was lost in 
silence, how anxious and uneasy I became, lest she and 
her companion should not be in time to get good places — 
lest the curtain should draw up before they arrived — and 
lest I should lose one line or look in the intelligent report 
which I should hear the next morning ! The punctuating 
1 Compare Memoirs, i. 32-3. — Ed. 



The Letter-Bell 211 

of time at that early period — every thing that gives it an 
articulate voice — seems of the utmost consequence ; for 
we do not know what scenes in the ideal world may run 
out of them : a world of interest may hang upon every 
instant, and we can hardly sustain the weight of future 
years which are contained in embryo in the most minute 
and inconsiderable passing events. How often have I put 
off writing a letter till it was too late ! How often have I 
had to run after the postman with it — now missing, now 
recovering the sound of his bell — breathless, angry with 
myself— then hearing the welcome sound come full round 
a corner — and seeing the scarlet costume which set all my 
fears and self-reproaches at rest ! I do not recollect having 
ever repented giving a letter to the postman or wishing to 
retrieve it after he had once deposited it in his bag. What 
I have once set my hand to, I take the consequences of, 
and have been always pretty much of the same humour in 
this respect. I am not like the person who, having sent 
off a letter to his mistress, who resided a hundred and 
twenty miles in the country, and disapproving, on second 
thoughts, of some expressions contained in it, took a post- 
chaise and four to- follow and intercept it the next morn- 
ing. At other times, I have sat and watched the decaying 
embers in a little back painting-room (just as the wintry 
day declined), and brooded over the half-finished copy of 
a Kembrandt, or a landscape by Yangoyen, placing it 
where it might catch a dim gleam of light from the fire ; 
while the Letter-Bell was the only sound that drew my 
thoughts to the world without, and reminded me that I had 
a task to perform in it. As to that landscape, methinks I 
see it now — 

'* The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale, 
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail." 

There was a windmill, too, with a poor low clay-built 
cottage beside it : how delighted I was when I had made % 
the tremulous, undulating reflection in the water, and saw 



212 The Letter-Bell 

the dull canvas become a lucid mirror of the commonest 
features .of nature ! Certainly, painting gives one a strong 
interest in nature and humanity (it is not the dandy-school 
of morals or sentiment) — 

■' While with an eye made quiet by the power 
Of harmony and the deep power of joy, 
"We see into the life of things." 

Perhaps there is no part of a painter's life (if we must 
tell " the secrets of the prison-house ") in which he has 
more enjoyment of himself and his art, than that in 
which, after his work is over, and with furtive, sidelong 
glances at what he has done, he is employed in washing 
his brushes and cleaning his pallet for the day. After- 
wards, when he gets a servant in livery to do this for him, 
he may have other and more ostensible sources of satisfac- 
tion — greater splendour, wealth, or fame ; but he will not 
be so wholly in his art, nor will his art have such a hold 
on him as when he was too poor to transfer its meanest 
drudgery to others — too humble to despise aught that had 
to do with the object of his glory and his pride, with that 
on which all his projects of ambition or pleasure were 
founded. " Entire affection scorneth nicer hands." When 
the professor is above this mechanical part of his business, 
it may have become a stalking-horse to other worldly 
schemes, but is no longer his hobby-horse and the delight 
of his inmost thoughts. 

I used sometimes to hurry through this part of my 
occupation, while the Letter-Bell (which was my dinner- 
bell) summoned me to the fraternal board, where youth 

and hope 

" Made good digestion wait on appetite 
And health on both ;" 

or oftener I put it off till after dinner, that I might loiter 
longer and with more luxurious indolence over it, and 
connect it with the thoughts of my next day's labours. 
The dustman's-bell, with its heavy monotonous noise, 






The Letter- Bell 213 

and the brisk, lively tinkle of the muffin-bell, have some- 
thing in them, but not much. They will bear dilating upon 
with the utmost licence of inventive prose. All things 
are not alike conductors to the imagination. A learned 
Scotch professor found fault with an ingenious friend 
and arch-critic for cultivating a rookery on his grounds : 
the professor declared " he would as soon think of encourag- 
ing a froggery." This was barbarous as it was senseless. 
Strange, that a country that has produced the Scotch Novels 
and Gertrude of Wyoming should want sentiment ! 

The postman's double knock at the door the next morn- 
ing is " more germain to the matter." How that knock 
often goes to the heart ! We distinguish to a nicety 
the arrival of the Twopenny or the General Post. The 
summons of the latter is louder and heavier, as bringing 
news from a greater distance, and as, the longer it has 
been delayed, fraught with a deeper interest. We catch 
the sound of what is to be paid — eightpence, ninepence, 
a shilling — and our hopes generally rise with the postage. 
How we are provoked at the delay in getting change — 
at the servant who does not hear the door ! Then if the 
postman passes, and we do not hear the expected knock, 
what a pang is there ! It is like the silence of death — of 
hope ! We think he does it on purpose, and enjoys all 
the misery of our suspense. I have sometimes walked 
out to see the Mail- Coach pass, by which I had sent 
a letter, or to meet it when I expected one. I never 
see a Mail-Coach, for this reason, but I look at it as the 
bearer of glad tidings — the messenger of fate. I have 
reason to say so. The finest sight in the metropolis is that 
of the Mail- Coaches setting off from Piccadilly. The 
horses paw the ground, and are impatient to be gone, as if 
conscious of the precious burden they convey. There is a 
peculiar secrecy and despatch, significant and full of 
meaning, in all the proceedings concerning them. Even 
the outside passengers have an erect and supercilious air, 



214 The Letter-Bell 

. s if proof against the accidents of the journey. In fact, 
it seems indifferent whether they are to encounter the 
summer's heat or winter's cold, since they are borne on 
through the air in a winged chariot. The Mail- Carts 
drive up ; the transfer of packages is made ; and, at a 
signal given, they start off, bearing the irrevocable scrolls 
that give wings to thought, and that bind or sever hearts 
for ever. How we hate the Putney and Brentford stages 
that draw up in a line after they are gone ! Some persons 
think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched 
on the bosom of the ocean ; but give me, for my private 
satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly 
of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way 
before them to the Land's-End ! 

In Cowper's time, Mail-Coaches were hardly set up ; 
but he has beautifully described the coming-in of the 
Post-Boy: — 

" Hark ! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, 
That with its wearisome but needful length 
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
Sees her un wrinkled face reflected bright : 
He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 
With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks ; 
News from all nations lumbering at his back. 
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind. 
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 
Is to conduct it to the destined inn ; 
And having dropped the expected bag, pass on. 
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch ! 
Cold and yet cheerful ; messenger of grief 
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 
To him indifferent whether grief or joy. 
Houses in ashes and the fall of stocks, 
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 
AVith tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks 
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 
Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains 
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect 
His horse and him, unconscious of them all." 



Envy. 215 

And yet, notwithstanding this, and so many other passages 
that seem like the very marrow of our being. Lord Byron 
denies that Cowper was a poet! — The Mail- Coach is an 
improvement on the Post-Boy ; but I fear it will hardly 
bear so poetical a description. The picturesque and 
dramatic do not keep pace with the useful and mechanical. 
The telegraphs that lately communicated the intelligence 
of the new revolution to all France within a few hours, 
are a wonderful contrivance; but they are less striking 
and appalling than the beacon-fires (mentioned by iEschy- 
lus), which, lighted from hill top to hill top, announced 
the taking of Troy, and the return of Agamemnon. 



Envy} 

Envy is the grudging or receiving pain from any accom- 
plishment or advantage possessed by another. It is one 
of the most tormenting and odious of the passions, inas- 
much as it does not consist in the enjoyment or pursuit 
of any good to ourselves, but in the hatred and jealousy of 
the good fortune of others, and the debarring and de- 
frauding them of their due and what is of no use to us, on 
the dog in the manger principle ; and it is at the same time 
as mean as it is revolting, as being accompanied with a 
sense of weakness, and a desire to conceal and tamper 
with the truth and its own convictions, out of paltry 
spite and vanity. It is, however, but an excess or ex- 
crescence of the other passions (such as pride or avarice), 
or of a wish to monopolise all the good things of life to 
ourselves, which makes us impatient and dissatisfied at 
seeing any one else in possession of that to which we 
think we have the only fair title. Envy is the deformed 
and distorted offspring of egotism ; and when we reflect on 

1 Another and different paper on this subject will be found in 
The Plain Speaker, 1826 [edit. 1870, pp. 132-47].— Ed. 



216 Envy. 

the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, 
we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of 
the child. Such is the absorbing and exorbitant quality 
of our self-love, that it represents us as of infinitely mere 
importance in our own eyes than the whole universe put 
together, and would sacrifice the claims and interest of all 
the world beside to the least of its caprices or extrava- 
gances : need we be surprised, then, that this little, 
upstart, overweening self, that would trample on the globe 
itself, and then weep for new ones to conquer, should be 
uneasy, mad, mortified, eaten up with chagrin and melan- 
choly, and hardly able to bear its own existence, at seeing 
a simple competitor among the crowd cross its path, jostle 
its pretensions, and stagger its opinion of its exclusive 
right to admiration and superiority? This it is that 
constitutes the offence, that gives the shock, that inflicts 
the wound, that some poor creature (as we would fain 
suppose) whom we had before overlooked and entirely 
disregarded as not worth our notice, should of a sudden 
enter the lists and challenge comparison with us. The 
presumption is excessive ; and so is our thirst of revenge. 
From the moment, however, that the eye fixes on another 
as the object of envy, we cannot take it off ; for our pride 
and self-conceit magnify that which obstructs our success 
and lessens our self-importance into a monster; we see 
nothing else, we hear of nothing else, we dream of nothing 
else ; it haunts us and takes possession of our whole souls ; 
and as we are engrossed by it ourselves, so we fancy that 
all the rest of the world are equally taken up with our 
petty annoyances and disappointed pride. Hence the 
" jealous leer malign " of envy, which, not daring to look 
that which provokes it in the face, cannot yet keep its 
eyes from it, and gloats over and becomes as it w r ere 
enamoured of the very object of its loathing and deadly 
hate. We pay off the score which our littleness and 
vanity has been running up, by ample and gratuitous 



Envy. 217 

concessions to the first person that gives a check to our 
swelling self-complacency, and forces us to drag him into 
an unwilling comparison with ourselves. It is no matter 
who the person is, or what his pretensions — if they are a 
counterpoise to our ow^n, we think them of more con- 
sequence than anything else in the world. This often 
gives rise to laughable results. We see the jealousies 
among servants, hackney-coachmen, cobblers in a stall : 
we are amused with the rival advertisements of quacks 
and stage-coach proprietors, and smile to read the sig- 
nificant intimation on some shop window, u No connection 
with next door;" but the same folly runs through the 
whole of life ; each person thinks that he who stands in 
his way or outstrips him in a particular pursuit, is the 
most enviable, and at the same time the most hateful 
character in the world. Nothing can show the absurdity 
of the passion of envy in a more striking point of view 
than the number of rival claims which it entirely over- 
looks, while it would arrogate all excellence to itself. 
The loftiness of our ambition and the narrowness of our 
views are equal, and, indeed, both depend upon the same 
cause. The player envies only the player, the poet envies 
only the poet, because each confines his idea of excellence 
to his own profession and pursuit, and thinks, if he could 
but remove some one particular competitor out of his w r ay, 
he should have a clear stage to himself, and be a " Phoenix 
gazed by all :" as if, though we crushed one rival, another 
would not start up ; or as if there were not a thousand 
other claims, a thousand other modes of excellence and 
praiseworthy acquirements, to divide the palm and defeat 
his idle pretension to the sole and unqualified admiration 
of mankind. Professors of every class see merit only in 
their owm line ; yet they would blight and destroy that 
little hit of excellence which alone they acknowledge to 
exist, except as it centres in themselves. Speak in praise 
of an actor to another actor, and he turns aw T ay with 



218 Envy. 

impatience and disgust : speak disparagingly of the first 
as an actor in general, and the latter eagerly takes up the 
quarrel as his own : thus the esprit de corps only conies in 
as an appendage to our self-love. It is, perhaps, well 
that we are so blind to merit out of our immediate sphere, 
for it might only prove an additional eye-sore, increase the 
obliquity of our mental vision, multiply our antipathies, 
or end in total indifference and despair. There is nothing 
so bad as a cynical apathy and contempt for every art and 
science from a superficial smattering and general ac- 
quaintance with them all. The merest pedantry and the 
most tormenting jealousy and heart-burning of envy are 
better than this. Those who are masters of different 
advantages and accomplishments are seldom the more 
satisfied with them : they still aim at something else 
(however contemptible) which they have not or cannot do. 
So Pope says of Wharton — 

" Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke, 
The club must hail him master of the joke. 
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new ? 
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too." 

The world, indeed, are pretty even with these constel- 
lations of splendid and superfluous qualities in their 
fastidious estimate of their own pretensions, for (if pos- 
sible) they never give any individual credit for more than 
one leading attainment, if that. If a man is an artist, his 
being a fine musician adds nothing to his fame. When 
the public strain a point to own one claim, it is on con- 
dition that the fortunate candidate waves every other. 
The mind is prepared with a plausible antithesis in such 
cases against the formidable encroachment of vanity : one 
qualification is regularly made a foil to another. We 
allow no one to be two things at a time : it quite unsettles 
our notion of personal identity. If we allow T a man wit, 
it is part of the bargain that he wants judgment : if style, 



Envy. 219 

lie wants matter. Rich, but a fool or miser : a beauty, 
but vain, and no better than she should be; — so runs the 
bond. " But " is the favourite monosyllable of envy and 
self-love. Raphael could draw and Titian could colour : 
we shall never get beyond these points while the world 
stands ; the human understanding is not cast in a mould 
to receive double proofs of entire superiority to itself. It 
is folly to expect it. If a further claim be set up, we call 
in question the solidity of the first, incline to retract it, 
and suspect that the whole is a juggle and a piece of 
impudence, as we threaten a common beggar with the 
stocks for following us to ask a second alms. This is, in 
fact, one source of the prevalence and deep root which 
envy has in the human mind : we are incredulous as to 
the truth and justice of the demands which are so often 
made upon our pity or our admiration ; but let the distress 
or the merit be established beyond all controversy, and we 
open our hearts and purses on the spot, and sometimes 
run into the contrary extreme when charity or admiration 
becomes the fashion. No one envies the Author of 
Waverley, because all admire him, and are sensible that 
admire him as they will, they can never admire him 
enough. We do not envy the sun for shining when we 
feel the warmth and see the light. When some persons 
start an injudicious parallel between Sir Walter and 
Shakspeare, we then may grow jealous and uneasy, because 
this interferes with our older and more firmly-rooted 
conviction of genius, and one which has stood a surer and 
severer test. Envy has, then, some connection with a 
sense of justice — it is a defence against imposture and 
quackery. Though we do not willingly give up the secret 
and silent consciousness of our own worth to vapouring 
and false pretences, we do homage to the true candidate 
for fame when he appears, and even exult and take a pride 
in our capacity to appreciate the highest desert. This is 
one reason why we do not envy the dead — less because 



220 Envy. 

they are removed out of our way 5 than because all doubt 
and diversity of opinion is dismissed from the question of 
their title to veneration and respect. Our tongue, having 
a licence, grows wanton in their praise. We do not envy 
or stint our admiration of Eubens, because the mists of 
uncertainty or prejudice are withdrawn by the hand of 
time from the splendour of his works. Fame is to genius 

" Like a gate of steel, 

Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
His figure and his heat." 

We give full and unbounded scope to our impressions 
when they are confirmed by successive generations, as we 
form our opinions coldly and slowly while we are afraid 
our judgment may be reversed by posterity. We trust 
the testimony of ages, for it is true ; we are no longer in 
pain lest we should be deceived by varnish and tinsel, and 
feel assured that the praise and the work are both sterling. 
In contemporary reputation, the greater and more tran- 
scendent the merit, the less is the envy attending it, which 
shows that this passion is not, after all, a mere barefaced 
hatred and detraction from acknowledged excellence. 
Mrs. biddons was nofc an object of envy ; her unrivalled 
powers defied competition or gainsayers. If Kean had a 
party against him, it was composed of those who could 
not or w^ould not see his merits through his defects ; and, 
in like manner, John Kemble's elevation to the tragic 
throne was not carried by loud and tumultuous acclama- 
tion, because the stately height which he attained was the 
gradual result of labour and study, and his style of acting 
did not flash with the inspiration of the god. We are 
backward to bestow a heaped measure of praise whenever 
there is any inaptitude or incongruity that acts to damp 
or throw a stumbling-block in the way of our enthusiasm. 
Hence the jealousy and dislike shown towards upstart 
wealth, as we cannot in our imaginations reconcile the 












Envy. 221 

former poverty of the possessors with their present mag- 
nificence — we despise fortune-hunters in ambition as well 
as in love — and hence, no doubt, one strong ground of 
hereditary right. We acquiesce more readily in an 
assumption of superiority that in the first place implies 
no merit (which is a great relief to the baser sort), and in 
the second, that baffles opposition by seeming a thing 
inevitable, taken for granted, and transmitted in the 
common course of nature. In contested elections, where 
the precedence is understood to be awarded to rank and 
title, there is observed to be less acrimony and obstinacy 
than when it is supposed to depend on individual merit 
and fitness for the office ; no one willingly allows 
another more ability or honesty than himself, but he can- 
not deny that another may be better born. Learning, 
again, is more freely admitted than genius, because it is 
of a more positive quality, and is felt to be less essentially 
a part of a man's self ; and with regard to the grosser and 
more invidious distinction of wealth, it may be difficult to 
substitute any finer test of respectability for it, since it is 
hard to fathom the depth of a man's understanding, but 
the length of his purse is soon known ; and besides there 
is a little collusion in the case. 

" The learned pate ducks to the golden fool." 

We bow to a patron who gives us a good dinner and his 
countenance for our pains, and interest bribes and lulls 
envy asleep. The most painful kind of envy is the envy 
towards inferiors ; for we cannot bear to think that a 
person (in other respects utterly insignificant) should have 
or seem to have an advantage over us in anything we have 
set our hearts upon, and it strikes at the very root of 
our self-love to be foiled by those we despise. There 
is some dignity in a contest with power and acknow- 
ledged reputation ; but a triumph over the sordid and the 
mean is itself a mortification, while a defeat is intolerable. 



222 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 1 

I have in my time known few thorough partisans, at 
least on my own side of the question. I conceive, 
however, that the honestest and strongest-minded men 
have been so. In general, interest, fear, vanity, the love 
of contradiction, even a scrupulous regard to truth and 
justice, come to divert them from the popular cause. It 
is a character that requires very opposite and almost 
incompatible qualities — reason and prejudice, a passionate 
attachment founded on an abstract idea. He who can 
take up a speculative question, and pursue it with the 
same zeal and unshaken constancy that he does his im- 
mediate interests or private animosities — he who is as 
faithful to his principles as he is to himself, is the true 
partisan. I do not here speak of the bigot, or the 
mercenary or cowardly tool of a party. There are plenty 
of this description of persons (a considerable majority of 
the inhabitants of every country) — who are " ever strong 
upon the stronger side," staunch, thorough-paced sticklers 
for their passions and prejudices, and who stand by their 
party as long as their party can stand by them. I speak 
of those who espouse a cause from liberal motives and 
with liberal views, and of the obstacles that are so often 
found to relax their perseverance or impair their zeal. 
These may, I think, be reduced chiefly to the heads of 
obligations to friends, of vanity, or the desire of the lead 
and distinction, to an over-squeamish delicacy in regard 
to appearances, to fickleness of purpose, or to natural 
timidity and weakness of nerve. 

There is nothing more contemptible than party-spirit 
in one point of view; and yet it seems inseparable in 
practice from public principle. You cannot support 
1 Written in 1820. 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 223 

measures unless you support men ; you cannot carry any 
point or maintain any system without acting in concert 
with others. In theory, it is all very well. We may 
refine in our distinctions, and elevate our language to 
what point we please. But in carrying the most sounding 
words and stateliest propositions into effect, we must make 
use of the instrumentality of men ; and some of the alloy 
and imperfection of the means may insinuate itself into 
the end. If we do not go all lengths with those who are 
embarked with us in the same views ; if we are not 
hearty in the defence of their interests and motives ; if 
we are not fully in their confidence and they in ours ; 
if we do not ingraft on the stock of public virtue the 
charities and sentiments of private affection and esteem ; 
if the bustle and anxiety and irritation of the state-affairs 
do not kindle into the glow of friendship, as well as 
patriotism ; if we look distant, suspicious, lukewarm at 
one another ; if we criticise, carp at, pry into the conduct 
of our party with watchful, jealous eyes ; it is to be feared 
we shall play the game into the enemy's hands, and not 
co-operate together for the common good with all the 
steadiness and cordiality that might be wished. On the 
other hand, if we lend ourselves to the foibles and 
weaknesses of our friends ; if we suffer ourselves to be 
implicated in their intrigues, their scrambles and bar- 
gainings for place and power ; if we flatter their mistakes, 
and not only screen them from the eyes of others, but are 
blind to them ourselves ; if we compromise a great 
principle in the softness of a womanish friendship ; if we 
entangle ourselves in needless family ties ; if we sell 
ourselves to the vices of a patron, or become the mouth- 
piece and echo of a coterie ; we shall be in that case slaves 
of a faction, not servants of the public, nor shall we long 
have a spark of the old Eoman or the old English virtue 
left. Good-nature, conviviality, hospitality, habits of 
acquaintance and regard, favours received or conferred, 



224 On the Spirit of Partisanship . 



spirit and eloquence to defend a friend when pressed hard 
upon, courtesy and good-breeding, are one thing — 
patriotism, firmness of principle, are another. The true 
patriot knows when to make each of these in turn give 
way to or control the other, in furtherance of the common 
good, just as the accomplished courtier makes all other 
interests, friendships, cabals, resentments, reconciliations, 
subservient to his attachment to the person of the king. 
He has the welfare of his country, the cause of mankind 
at heart, and makes that the scale in which all other 
motives are weighed as in a balance. With this inward 
prompter he knows when to speak and when to hold his 
tongue, when to temporise, and when to throw away the 
scabbard, when to make men of service to principles, and 
when to make principles the sole condition of popularity 
— nearly as well as if he had a title or a pension de- 
pending in reversion on his success : for it is true that 
" in their generation the children of this world are wiser 
than the children of light." In my opinion, Charles Fox 
had too much of what we mean by " the milk of human 
kindness "to be a practical statesman, particularly in 
critical times, and with a cause of infinite magnitude at 
stake. He was too easy a friend, and too generous an 
enemy. He was willing to think better of those with 
whom he acted, or to whom he was opposed, than they 
deserved. He was the creature of temperament and 
sympathy, and suffered his feelings to be played upon, 
and to get the better of his principles, which were not 
of the most rigid kind — not " stuff o' the conscience." 
With all the power of the crown, and all the strongholds 
of prejudice and venality opposed to him, " instead of a 
softness coming over the heart of a man," he should (in 
such a situation) have " turned to the stroke his ada- 
mantine scales that feared no discipline of human hands," 
and made it a struggle ad internecionem on the one side, 
as it was on the other. There was no place for 



. 






On the Spirit of Partisanship. 225 

moderation, much less for huckstering and trimming. 
Mr. Burke saw the thing right enough. It was a question 
about a principle — about the existence or extinction of 
human rights in the abstract. He was on the side of 
legitimate slavery ; Mr. Fox on that of natural liberty. 
That was no reason he should be less bold or jealous 
in her defence, because he had everything to contend 
against. But he made too many coalitions, too many com- 
promises with flattery, with friendship (to say nothing 
of the baits of power), not to falter and be defeated at 
last in the noble stand he had made for the principles of 
freedom. 

Another sort are as much too captious and precise, as 
these are lax and cullible in their notions of political 
warfare. Their fault is an overweening egotism, as that 
of the former was too great a facility of temper. They 
will have everything their own way to the minutest tittle, 
or they cannot think of giving it their sanction and 
support. The cause must come to them, they will not 
go to the cause. They stand upon their punctilio. They 
have a character at stake, which is dearer to them than 
the whole world. They have an idea of perfect truth 
and beauty in their own minds, the contemplation of 
which is a never-failing source of delight and consolation 
to them, 

u Though sun and moon were in the flat sea sunk " 

and which they will not soil by mixing it up with the 
infirmities of any cause or any party. They will not, 
" to do a great right, do a little wrong." They will let 
the lofty pillar inscribed to human liberty fall to the 
ground sooner than extend a finger to save it, on account 
of the dust and cobwebs that cling to it. It is not this 
great and mighty object they are thinking of all the 
time, but their own fantastic reputation and puny pre- 
tensions. While the world is tumbling about our ears, 

Q 



226 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 

and the last hold of liberty, the ark containing our birth- 
right, the only possible barrier against bare-faced tyranny, 
is tottering — instead of setting the engines and the 
mortal instruments at work to prop it, and fighting in 
the trenches to the last drop, they are washing their 
hands of all imaginary imperfections, and looking in 
the glass of their own vanity, with an air of heightened 
self-complacency. Alas ! they do not foresee the fatal 
consequences ; they have an eye only to themselves. 
While all the power, the prejudice, and ignorance of 
mankind are drawn up in deadly array against the 
advance of truth and justice, they owe it to themselves, 
forsooth I to state the naked merits of the question (heat 
and passion apart), and pick out all the faults of which 
their own party has been guilty, to fling as a make-weight 
into the adversary's scale of unmeasured abuse and ex- 
ecration. They will not take their ready stand by the 
side of him who was " the very arm and burgonet of man," 
and like a demi- Atlas, could alone prop a declining world, 
because for themselves they have some objections to the 
individual instrument, and they think principles more 
important than persons. No, they think persons of more 
consequence than principles, and themselves most of all. 
They injure the principle through the person most able 
to protect it. They betray the cause by not defending 
it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, 
without exception and without remorse. When every- 
thing is at stake, dear and valuable to man, as man ; when 
there is but the one dreadful alternative of entire loss, or 
final recovery of truth and freedom, it is no time to stand 
upon trifles and moot-points ; the great object is to be 
secured first, and at all hazards. 

But there is a third thing in their minds, a fanciful 
something which they prefer to both contending parties. 
It may be so ; but neither they nor we can get it. We 
must have one of the two things imposed upon us, not 



I 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 227 

by choice but by bard necessity. " Our bane and antidote 
are both before us ; " and if we do anything to neglect 
the one, we justly incur the heavy, intolerable, unredeemed 
penalty of the other. If our pride is stung, if we have 
received a blow or the lie in our own persons, we know 
well enough what to do : our blood is up, we have an 
actual feeling and object to satisfy ; and we are not to be 
diverted from our purpose by sophistry or mere words. 
The quarrel is personal to ourselves ; and we feel the 
whole stress of it, rousing every faculty and straining 
every nerve. But if the quarrel is general to mankind ; 
if it is one in which the rights, freedom, hopes, and 
happiness of the whole world are embarked ; if we see 
the dignity of our common nature prostrate, trampled 
upon and mangled before the brute image of power, this 
gives us little concern ; our reason may disapprove, but 
our passions, our prejudices, are not touched ; and there- 
fore our reason, our humanity, our abstract love of right 
(not " screwed to the sticking-place " by some paltry 
interest of our own) are easily satisfied with any hollow 
professions of good- will, or put off with vague excuses, or 
staggered with open defiance. We are here, where a 
principle only is in danger, at leisure to calculate con- 
sequences, prudently for ourselves, or favourably for 
others : were it a point of honour (we think the honour 
of human nature is not our honour, that its disgrace is 
not our disgrace — we are not the rabble !) we should 
throw consideration and compassion to the clogs, and 
cry — " Away to heaven respective lenity, and fire-eyed 
fury be my conduct now !" But charity is cold. We are 
the dupes of the flatteries of our opponents, because we 
are indifferent to our own object : we stand in awe of 
their threats, because in the absence of passion we are 
tender of our persons. They beat us in courage and in 
intellect, because we have nothing but the common good 
to sharpen our faculties or goad our will ; they have no 



228 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 

less an alternative in view than to be uncontrolled masters 
of mankind, or to be hurled from high — 

" To grinning scorn a sacrifice, 
And endless infamy !" 

They do not celebrate the triumphs of their enemies as 
their own : it is with them a more feeling disputation. 
They never give an inch of ground that they can keep ; 
they keep all that they can get ; they make no concessions 
that can redound to their own discredit ; they assume all 
that makes for them ; if they pause it is to gain time ; 
if they offer terms it is to break them : they keep no faith 
with enemies : if you relax in your exertions, they per- 
severe the more : if you make new efforts, they redouble 
theirs. While they give no quarter, you stand upon mere 
ceremony. While they are cutting your throat, or putting 
the gag in your mouth, you talk of nothing but liberality, 
freedom of inquiry, and douce humanite. Their object is to 
destroy you, your object is to spare them — to treat them 
according to your own fancied dignity. They have sense 
and spirit enough to take all advantages that will further 
their cause : you have pedantry and pusillanimity enough 
to undertake the defence of yours, in order to defeat it. 
It is the difference between the efficient and the in- 
efficient ; and this again resolves itself into the difference 
between a speculative proposition and a practical interest. 
One thing that makes tyrants bold is, that they have 
the power to justify their wrong. They lay their hands 
upon the sword, and ask who will dispute their commands. 
The friends of humanity and justice have not in general 
this ark of confidence to recur to, and can only appeal to 
reason and propriety. They oppose power on the plea of 
right and conscience; and shall they, in pursuance of 
their claims, violate in the smallest tittle what is due to 
truth and justice ? So that the one have no law but their 
wills, and the absolute extent of their authority, in attain- 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 229 

ing or securing their ends, because they make no preten 
sions to scrupulous delicacy : the others are cooped and 
cabined in by all sorts of nice investigations in philosophy, 
and misgivings of the moral sense ; that is, are deprived 
or curtailed of the means of succeeding in their ends, 
because those ends are not bare-faced violence and wrong. 
It might as well be said that a man has a right to knock 
me on the head on the highway, and that I am only to 
use mildness and persuasion in return, as best suited to 
the justice of my cause ; as that I am not to retaliate 
and make reprisals on the common enemies of mankind 
in their own style and mode of execution. Is not a man 
to defend his liberty, or the liberties of his fellow men, 
as strenuously and remorselessly as he would his life or 
his purse ? Men are Quakers in political principle, Turks 
and Jews in private conscience. 

The whole is an error arising from confounding the 
distinction between theory and practice, between the still- 
life of letters and the tug and onset of contending factions. 
I might recommend to our political mediators the advice 
which Henry V. addressed to his soldiers on a critical 
occasion : — 

" In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility ; 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears. 
Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-fa vour'd rage ; 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 
Let it pry through the portage of the head, 
Like the brass-cannon : let the brow o'erwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swill' d with the wild and wasteful ocean : 
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide ; 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
To his full height." 1 



Henry F., iii. 1 [edit, ut supra]. 



230 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 

So, in speculation refine as much as you please, in- 
tellectually and morally speaking, and you may do it with 
advantage. Reason is then the instrument you use, and 
you cannot raise the standard of perfection you fix upon 
and propose to others too high, or proceed with too much 
candour and moderation in the advancement of truth : but 
in practice you have not your choice of ends or means. 
You have two things to decide between, the extreme, pro- 
oably, of an evil and a considerable good ; and if you will 
not make your mind up to take the best of the two with 
all its disadvantages and drawbacks, you must be con- 
tented to take the worst : for as you cannot alter the state 
of the conflicting parties who are carrying their point by 
force, or dictate what is best by a word speaking ; so by 
finding fault with the attainable good, and throwing cold 
water on it, you add fuel to your enemy's courage and 
assist his success. " Those who are not for us are against 
us." You create a diversion in his favour, by distracting 
and enervating men's minds, as much as by questioning 
the general's orders, or drawing off a strong detachment 
in the heat of a battle. Political is like military warfare. 
There are but two sides ; and after you have once chosen 
your party, it will not do to stand in the midway, and say 
you like neither. There is no other to like, in the eye of 
common sense, or in the practical and inevitable result of 
the thing. As active partisans, we must take up with the 
best we can get in the circumstances, and defend it with 
all our might against a worse cause (which will prevail, 
if this does not), instead of " letting our frail thoughts 
dally with faint surmise;" or, while dreaming of an ideal 
perfection, we shall find ourselves surprised into the train, 
and gracing the triumph, of the common enemy. It is 
sufficient if our objects and principles are sound and dis- 
interested. If we were engaged in a friendly contest, 
where integrity and fair dealing were the order of the day, 
our means might be as unimpeachable as our ends ; but in 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 231 

a struggle with the passions, interests, and prejudices of 
men, right reason, pure intention, are hardly competent 
to carry us through : we want another stimulus. The 
vices may be opposed to each other sometimes with 
advantage and propriety. A little of the alloy of human 
frailty may be allowed to lend its aid to the service oi 
humanity; and if we have only so much obstinacy or 
insensibility as enables us to persevere in the path of 
public duty with more determination and effect, both our 
motives and conduct will be above the ordinary standard 
of political morality. To suppose that we can do much 
more than this, or that we can set up our individual 
opinion of what is best in itself, or of the best means of 
attaining it, and be listened to by the world at large, is 
egregiously to overrate their docility or our own powers 
of persuasion. 

It is the same want of a centripetal force, of a ruling 
passion, of a moral instinct of union and co-operation for 
a general purpose, that makes men fly off into knots and 
factions, and each set up for the leader of a party himself. 
Where there is a strong feeling of interest at work, it 
reconciles and combines the most discordant materials, 
and fits them to their place in the social machine. But 
in the conduct and support of the public good, we see 
"nothing but vanity, chaotic vanity." There is no for- 
bearance, no self-denial, no magnanimity of proceeding. 
Every one is seeking his own aggrandisement, or to sup- 
plant his neighbour, instead of advancing the popular 
cause. It is because they have no real regard for it but 
as it serves as a stalking horse to their ambition, restless 
inquietude, or love of cabal. They abuse and vilify their 
own party, just as they do the ministers. 

" Each lolls his tongue out at the other, 
And shakes his empty noddle at his brother." 

John Bull does not aim so maliciously, or hit so hard at 



232 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 

Whigs and Eeformers, as Cobbett. The reason is, that a 
very large proportion of these Marplots and regenerators 
of the world are actuated by no love of their species or 
zeal for a general question, but by envy, malice, and all 
uncharitableness. They are discontented with themselves 
and with everything about them. They object to, they 
dissent from every measure. Nothing pleases their fasti- 
dious tastes. For want of something to exercise their 
ill-humour and troublesome ofnciousness upon, they abuse 
the government : when they are baulked or tired of this 
they fall foul of one another. The slightest slip or 
difference of opinion is never forgiven, but gives birth 
to a deadly feud. Touch but their petty self-importance, 
and out comes a flaming denunciation of their own cabal, 
and all they know about the individuals composing it. 
This is not patriotism but spleen — a want of something to 
do and to talk about — of sense, honesty, and feeling. To 
wreak their spite on an individual, they will ruin the 
cause, and serve up the friend and idol of the people 
sliced and carbonadoed, a delicious mortal to the other 
side. There is a strange want of keeping in this. They 
are true neither to themselves nor to their principles. 
The Eeformers are in general, it must be confessed, an 
ill-conditioned set ; and they should be told of this in- 
firmity that most easily besets them. When they find 
their gall and bitterness overflowing on the very persons 
who take the lead, and deservedly take the lead, in their 
affairs, for some slight flaw or misunderstanding, they 
should be taught to hold their tongues, or be drummed out 
of the regiment as spies and informers. 

Trimming, and want of spirit to declare the honest 
truth, arise in part from the same source. When a man 
is not thoroughly convinced of an opinion, or where he 
does not feel a deep interest in it, he does not like to 
make himself obnoxious by avowing it ; is willing to 
make all the allowance he can for difference of sentiment, 



On the Spirit of Partisanship. 233 

and consults his own safety by retiring from a sinking 
cause. This is the very time when the genuine partisan, 
who has a rooted attachment to a principle, and feels it 
as a part of himself, finds himself most called upon to 
come forward in its support. His anxiety for truth and 
justice leaves him in no fear for himself, and the sin- 
cerity of his motives makes him regardless of censure or 
obloquy. His profession of hearty devotion to freedom 
was not an ebullition called forth by the sunshine of 
prosperity, a lure for popularity and public favour ; and 
when these desert it, he still maintains his post with his 
integrity. There is a natural timidity of mind, also, 
which can never go the whole length of any opinion, but 
is always interlarding its qualified assent with unmeaning 
huts and ifs ; as there is a levity and discursiveness of 
imagination which cannot settle finally in any belief, 
and requires a succession of glancing views, topics, and 
opposite conclusions, to satisfy its appetite for intel- 
lectual variety. I have known persons leave the cause 
of independence and freedom, not because they found it 
unprofitable, but because they found it flat and stale for 
want of novelty. At the same time, interest is a great 
stimulator ; and perhaps the success of their early prin- 
ciples might have reconciled them to their embarrassing 
monotony. Few persons have strength and simplicity of 
mind (without some additional inducement) to be always 
harping on the same string, or to put up with the 
legitimate variety to be found in an abstract principle, 
applicable to all emergencies. They like changeable 
silks better than lasting homespun. A sensible man once 

mentioned to me his having called on that morning, 

who entertained with him a tirade against the Bourbons 
for two hours ; but he said he did not at all feel con- 
vinced that he might not have been writing ultra-royalist 

paragraphs for the , just, before he came, in their 

favour, and only shifted his side of the argument, as a 



234 On the Spirit of Partisanship. 

man who is tired of lying too long on one side of his body 
is glad to turn to the other. There was much shrewd- 
ness, and equal probability in this conjecture. 

I think the spirit of partisanship is of use in a point of 
view that has not been distinctly adverted to. It serves 
as a conductor to carry off our antipathies and ill-blood in 
a quarter and a manner that is least hurtful to the general 
weal. A thorough partisan is a good hater ; but he hates 
only one side of a question, and that the outside. His 
bigotry throws human nature into strong light and shade ; 
he has his sympathies as well as his antipathies ; it is not 
all black or a dull drab-colour. He does not generalise 
in his contempt or disgust, or proceed from individuals to 
universals. He lays the faults and vices of mankind to 
the account of sects and parties, creeds and classes. Man 
in himself is a good sort of animal. It is the being a 
Tory or a Whig (as it may happen) that makes a man a 
knave or fool ; but then we hardly look upon him as of 
the same species with ourselves. Kings are not arbitrary, 
nor priests hypocritical, because they are men, but because 
they are kings and priests. We form certain nominal 
abstractions of these classes, which the more we dislike 
them the less natural do they seem, and leave the general 
character of the species untouched, or act as a foil to it. 
There is nothing that is a greater damper to party spirit 
than to suggest that the errors and enormities of both 
sides arise from certain inherent dispositions common to 
the species. It shocks the liberal and enlightened among 
us, to suppose that under any circumstances they could 
become bigots, tools, persecutors. They wipe their hands 
clean of all such aspersions. There is a great gulf of 
prejudice and passion placed between us and our oppo- 
nents ; and this is interpreted into a natural barrier and 
separation of sentiment and feeling. " Our withers are 
unwrung." Burke represented modern revolutionists to 
himself under the equivocal similitude of " green-eyed, 






On the Spirit of Partisanship 235 

spring-nailed, velvet-pawed philosophers, whether going 
on two legs or on four ; " and thus removed to a distance 
from his own person all the ill attributes with which he 
had complimented the thorough-bred metaphysician. By 
comparing the plausible qualities of a minister of state to 
the sleekness of the panther, I myself seem to have no 
more affinity with that whole genus, than with the 
whiskers and claws of that formidable and spirited 
animal. Bishop Taylor used to reprimand his rising 
pride by saying, at the sight of a reprobate, " There goes 
my wicked self :" we do not apply the same method 
politically, and say, " There goes my Tory or my Jacobin 
self." We suppose the two things incompatible. The 
Calvinist damns the Arminian, the Protestant the Papist, 
&c, but it is not for a difference of nature, but an oppo- 
sition of opinion. The spirit of partisanship is not a 
spirit of our misanthropy. But for the vices and errors 
of example and institution, mankind are (on this principle) 
only a little lower than the angels ; it is false doctrine 
and absurd prejudices that make demons of them. The 
only original sin is differing in opinion with us : of that 
they are curable like any occasional disorder, and the 
man comes out, from beneath the husk of his party 
and prejudices, pure and immaculate. Make proselytes of 
them, let them come over to our way of thinking, and they 
are a different race of beings quite. This is to be effected 
by the force of argument and the progress of knowledge. 
It is well, it is perfectly well. We cast the slough of our 
vices with the shibboleth of our party ; a real Eeform in 
Parliament would banish all knavery and folly from the 
land. It is not the same wretched little mischievous 
animal, man, that is alike under all denominations and all 
systems, and in whom different situations and notions only 
bring out different inherent, incorrigible vices and pro- 
pensities ; but the professions and the theory being 
changed for the one which we think the only true and 



236 Footmen. 

infallible one, the whole world, by the mere removal of 
our arbitrary prejudices and modes of thinking, would 
become as sincere, as benevolent, as independent, and as 
worthy peojfte as we are ! To hate and proscribe half the 
species under various pretexts and nicknames, seems, 
therefore, the only way to entertain a good opinion of 
ourselves and mankind in general. 



Footmen. 

Footmen are no part of Christianity ; but they are a very 
necessary appendage to our happy Constitution in Church 
and State. What would the bishop's mitre be without 
these grave supporters to his dignity ? Even the plain 
presbyter does not dispense with his decent serving-man 
to stand behind his chair and load his duly emptied plate 
with beef and pudding, at which the genius of Ude turns 
jjale. What would become of the coronet-coach filled 
with elegant and languid forms, if it were not for the 
triple row of powdered, laced, and liveried footmen, 
clustering, fluttering, and lounging behind it ? What an 
idea do we not conceive of the fashionable belle, who is 
making the most of her time and tumbling over silks and 
satins within at Howell and James's, or at the Bazaar in 
Soho-square, from the tall lacquey in blue and silver with 
gold-headed cane, cocked-hat, white thread stockings and 
large calves to his legs, who stands as her representative 
without! The sleek shopman appears at the door, at 
an understood signal the livery-servant starts from his 
position, the coach-door flies open, the steps are let down, 
the young lady enters the carriage as young ladies are 
taught to step into carriages, the footman closes the door, 
mounts behind, and the glossy vehicle rolls off, bearing 
its lovely burden and her gaudy attendant from the gaze 
of the gaping crowd ! Is there not a spell in beauty, a 



Footmen. 237 

charm in rank and fashion, that one would almost wish to 
be this fellow — to obey its nod, to watch its looks, to 
breathe but by its permission, and to live but for its use, 
its scorn, or pride ? 

Footmen are in general looked upon as a sort of super- 
numeraries in society — they have no place assigned them 
in any Encyclopaedia — they do not come under any of the 
heads in Mr. Mill's Elements, or Mr. Macculloch's Principles 
of Political Economy ; and they nowhere have had im- 
partial justice done them, except in Lady Booby's love for 
one of that order. But if not " the Corinthian capitals of 
polished society," they are " a graceful ornament to the 
civil order." Lords and ladies could not do without them. 
Nothing exists in this world but by contrast. A foil is 
necessary to make the plainest truths self-evident. It is 
the very insignificance, the nonentity, as it were, of the 
gentlemen of the cloth, that constitutes their importance, 
and makes them an indispensable feature in the social sys- 
tem, by setting off the pretensions of their superiors to the 
best advantage. What would be the good of having a will 
of our own, if we had not others about us who are deprived 
of all will of their own, and who wear a badge to say, " I 
serve ? " How can we show that we are the lords of the 
creation but by reducing others to the condition of 
machines, who never move but at the beck of our caprices ? 
Is not the plain suit of the master wonderfully relieved by 
the borrowed trappings and mock- finery of his servant? 
You see that man on horseback who keeps at some distance 
behind another, who follows him as his shadow, turns 
as he turns, and as he passes or speaks to him, lifts his 
hand to his hat and observes the most profound attention 
— what is the difference between these two men ? The 
one is as well mounted, as well fed, is younger and 
seemingly in better health than the other ; but between 
these two there are perhaps seven or eight classes of society 
each of whom is dependent on and trembles at the frown 



238 Footmen. 

of the other — it is a nobleman and his lacquey. Let air 
one take a stroll towards the West-end of the town, Scuth 
Audley or Upper Grosvenor-streets ; it is then he will feel 
himself first entering into the beau ideal of civilised life, 
a society composed entirely of lords and footmen ! Deliver 
me from the filth and cellars of St. Giles's, from the shops 
of Holborn and the Strand, from all that appertains to 
middle and to low life ; and commend me to the streets 
with the straw at the doors and hatchments over head to 
tell ns of those who are just born or who are just dead, 
and with groups of footmen lounging on the steps and in- 
sulting the passengers — it is then I feel the true dignity 
and imaginary pretensions of human nature realised ! 
There is here none of the squalidness of poverty, none of 
the hardships of daily labour, none of the anxiety and 
petty artifice of trade ; life's business is changed into a 
romance, a summer's dream, and nothing painful, disgus- 
ting, or vulgar intrudes. All is on a liberal and handsome 
scale. The true ends and benefits of society are here 
enjoyed and bountifully lavished, and all the trouble and 
misery banished, and not even allowed so much as to exist 
in thought. Those who would find the real Utopia, should 
look for it somewhere about Park-lane or May-fair. It is 
there only any feasible approach to equality is made — for 
it is like master like man. Here, as I look down Cnrzon- 
street, or catch a glimpse of the taper spire of South 
Audley Chapel, or the family arms on the gate of Chester- 
field House, the vista of years opens to me. and I recall the 
period of the triumph of Mr. Burke's Reflections on the 
French Revolution, and the overthrow of Tlie Rights of Man ! 
You do not, indeed, penetrate to the interior of the mansion 
where sits the stately possessor, luxurious and refined ; 
but you draw your inference from the lazy, pampered, 
motley crew poured forth from his portals. This mealy- 
3oated, moth-like, butterfly generation, seem to have no 
earthly business but to enjoy themselves. Their green 



Footmen. 239 

liveries accord with the budding leaves and spreading 
branches of the trees in Hyde Park — they seem " like 
brothers of the groves " — their red faces and powdered 
heads harmonise with the blossoms of the neighbouring 
almond-trees, that shoot their sprays over old-fashioned 
brick walls, They come forth like grasshoppers in June, 
as numerous and as noisy. They bask in the sun and 
laugh in your face. Not only does the master enjoy an 
uninterrupted leisure and tranquillity — those in his 
employment have nothing to do. He wants drones, not 
drudges, about him, to share his superfluity, and give a 
haughty pledge of his exemption from care. They grow 
sleek and wanton, saucy and supple. From being in- 
dependent of the world, they acquire the look of gentle- 
men s gentlemen. There is a cast of the aristocracy, with a 
slight shade of distinction. The saying, " Tell me your 
company, and I'll tell you your manners," may be ap- 
plied cum grano salts to the servants in great families. 
Mr. Northcote knew an old butler who had lived with 
a nobleman so long, and had learnt to imitate his walk, 
look, and way of speaking, so exactly that it was next to 
impossible to tell them apart. See the porter in the 
great leather chair in the hall — how big, and burly, and 
self-important he looks ; while my Lord's gentleman (the 
politician of the family) is reading the second edition of 
The Courier (once more in request) at the side window, 
and the footman is romping, or taking tea with the maids 
in the kitchen below. A match-girl meanwhile plies her 
shrill trade at the railing ; or a gipsy- woman passes with 
her rustic wares through the street, avoiding the closet 
haunts of the city. What a pleasant farce is that of High 
Life Below Stairs ! What a careless life do the domestics 
of the great lead ! For, not to speak of the reflected self- 
importance of their masters and mistresses, and the con- 
tempt with which they look down on the herd of mankind, 
they have only to eat and drink their fill, talk the scandal 



240 Footmen. 

of the neighbourhood, laugh at the follies, or assist the 
intrigues of their betters, till they themselves fall in love, 
marry, set up a public-house (the only thing they are fit 
for), and without habits of industry, resources in them- 
selves, or self-respect, and drawing fruitless comparisons 
with the past, are, of all people, the most miserable! 
Service is no inheritance ; and when it fails, there is not a 
more helpless, or more worthless set of devils in the world. 

Mr. C used to say he should like to be a footman to 

some elderly lady of quality, to carry her prayer-book to 
church, and place her hassock right for her. There can be 
no doubt that this would have been better, and quite as 
useful as the life he has led, dancing attendance on Pre- 
judice, but flirting with Paradox in such a way as to cut 
himself out of the old lady's will. For my part, if I had 
to choose, I should prefer the service of a young mistress, 
and might share the fate of the footmen recorded in heroic 
verse by Lady Wortley Montagu. Certainly it can be no 
hard duty, though a sort of forlorn hope, to have to follow 
three sisters, or youthful friends (resembling the three 
Graces), at a slow pace, and with grave demeanour, from 
Cumberland-gate to Kensington-gardens — to be there shut 
out, a privation enhancing the privilege, and making the 
sense of distant, respectful, idolatrous admiration more 
intense — and then, after a brief interval lost in idle chat, 
or idler reverie, to have to follow them back again, ob- 
serving, not observed, to keep within call, to watch every 
gesture, to see the breeze play with the light tresses or 
lift the morning robe aside, to catch the half-suppressed 
laugh, and hear the low murmur of indistinct words and 
wishes, like the music of the spheres. An amateur foot- 
man would seem a more rational occupation than that of 
an amateur author, or an amateur artist. An insurmount- 
able barrier, if it excludes passion, does not banish senti- 
ment, but draws an atmosphere of superstitious, trembling 
apprehension round the object of so much attention and 



Footmen. 241 

respect ; nothing makes women seem so much like angels 
as always to see, never to converse with them ; and those 
whom he has to dangle a cane after, must, to a lacquey of 
any spirit, appear worthy to wield sceptres. 

But of all situations of this kind, the most enviable is 
that of a lady's maid in a family travelling abroad. In the 
obt'iseness of foreigners to the nice gradations of English 
refinement and manners, the maid has not seldom a chance 
of being taken for the mistress — a circumstance never to 
be forgot ! See our Abigail mounted in the dickey with 
John, snug and comfortable — setting out on the grand tour 
as fast as four horses can carry her, whirled over the " vine- 
covered hills and gay regions of France," crossing the Alps 
and Apennines in breathless terror and wonder — fright- 
ened at a precipice, laughing at her escape — coming to the 
inn, going into the kitchen to see what is to be had — not 
speaking a word of the language, except what she picks up 
" as pigeons pick up peas :" — the bill paid, the passport 
vise, the horses put to, and en route again — seeing every- 
thing, and understanding nothing, in a full tide of health, 
fresh air, and animal spirits, and without one qualm of 
taste or sentiment, and arriving at Florence, the city of 
palaces, with its amphitheatre of hills and olives, without 
•suspecting that such persons as Boccaccio, Dante, or 
Galileo, had ever lived there, while her young mistress is 
puzzled with the varieties of the Tuscan dialect, is dis- 
appointed in the Arno, and cannot tell what to make of the 
statue of David by Michael Angelo, in the Great Square. 
The difference is, that the young lady, on her return, has 
something to think of ; but the maid absolutely forgets 
everything, and is only giddy and out of breath, as if she 
had been up in a balloon. 

" No more : where ignorance is bliss, 
'Tis folly to be wise !" 

English servants abroad, notwithstanding the comforts 

R 



242 Footmen. 

they enjoy, and though travelling as it were en famille, 
must be struck with the ease and familiar footing on which 
foreigners live with their domestics, compared with the 
distance and reserve with which they themselves are treat- 
ed. The bonne sits down in the room, or walks abreast 
with you in the street ; and the valet, who waits behind his 
master's chair at table, gives Monsieur his advice or opinion 
without being asked for it. We need not wonder at this 
familiarity and freedom, when we consider that those who 
allowed it could (formerly, at least, when the custom began) 
send those who transgressed but in the smallest degree to 
the Bastille or the galleys at their pleasure. The licence 
was attended with perfect impunity. With us the law 
leaves less to discretion ; and by interposing a real in- 
dependence (and plea of right) between the servant and 
master, does away with the appearance of it on the surface 
of manners. The insolence and tyranny of the Aristocracy 
fell more on the tradespeople and mechanics than on their 
domestics, who were attached to them by a semblance of 
feudal ties. Thus, an upstart lady of quality (an imitator 
of the old school) would not deign to speak to a milliner 
while fitting on her dress, but gave her orders to her 
waiting-women to tell her what to do. Can we wonder at 
twenty reigns of terror to efface such a feeling ? 

I have alluded to the inclination in servants in great 
.houses to ape the manners of their superiors, and to their 
sometimes succeeding. What facilitates the metamor- 
phosis is, that the Great, in their character of courtiers, 
are a sort of footmen in their turn. There is the same 
crouching to interest and authority in either case, with 
the same surrender or absence of personal dignity— the 
same submission to the trammels of outward form, with 
the same suppression of inward impulses — the same de- 
grading finery, the same pretended deference in the eye of 
the world, and the same lurking contempt from being 
admitted behind the scenes, the same heartlessness, and 



Footmen. 243 

the same eye-service — in a word, they are alike puppets 
governed by motives not their own, machines made of 
* coarser or finer materials. It is not, therefore, surprising, 
if the most finished courtier of the day cannot, by a 
vulgar eye, be distinguished from a gentleman's servant. 
M. de Bausset, in his amusing and excellent Memoirs, 
makes it an argument of the legitimacy of Napoleon's 
authority, that from denying it, it would follow that his 
lords of the bed-chamber were valets, and he himself 
(as prefect of the palace) no better than head cook. The 
inference is logical enough. According to the author's 
view, there was no other difference between the retainers 
of the court and the kitchen than the rank of the master ! 
I remember hearing it said that " all men were equal 
but footmen." But of all footmen the lowest class is 
literary footmen. These consist of persons who, without a 
single grain of knowledge, taste, or feeling, put on the 
livery of learning, mimic its phrases by rote, and are 
retained in its service by dint of quackery and assurance 
alone. As they have none of the. essence, they have all 
the externals of men of gravity and wisdom. They walk 
with a peculiar strut, thrust themselves into the acquaint- 
ance of persons they hear talked of, get introduced into 
the clubs, are seen reading books they do not understand 
at the Museum and public libraries, dine (if they can) 
with lords or officers of the Guards, abuse any party as 
low to show what fine gentlemen they are, and the next 
week join the same party to raise their own credit and 
gain a little consequence, give themselves out as wits, 
critics, and philosophers (and as they have never done 
anything, no man can contradict them), and have a great 
knack of turning editors, and not paying their con- 
tributors. If you get five pounds from one of them, he 
never forgives it. With the proceeds thus appropriated, 
the book- worm graduates a dandy, hires expensive apart- 
ments, sports a tandem, and it is'inferred that he must be 



244 A Chapter on Editors. 

a great author who can support such an appearance with 
his pen, and a great genius who can conduct so many- 
learned works while his time is devoted to the gay, the 
fair, and the rich. This introduces him to new editor- 
ships, to new and more select friendships, and to more 
irequent and importunate demands from debts and duns. 
At length the bubble bursts and disappears, and you hear 
no more of our classical adventurer, except from the 
invectives and self-reproaches of his dupes. Such a 
candidate for literary honours bears the same relation to 
the man of letters that the valet, with his second-hand 
finery and servile airs, does to his master. 



A Chapter on Editors. 

Editors are a " sort of tittle-tattle" — difficult to deal with, 
dangerous to discuss. They in general partake of the 
usual infirmity of human nature, and of persons placed in 
high and honorary situations. Like other individuals 
raised to authority, they are chosen to fill a certain post 
for qualities useful or ornamental to the reading public ; 
but they soon fancy that the situation has been invented 
for their own honour and profit, and sink the use in the 
abuse. Kings are not the only servants of the public who 
imagine that they are the state. Editors are but men, and 
easily " lay the flattering unction to their souls'' that they 
are the Magazine, the Newspaper, or the Eeview they 
conduct. They have got a little power in their hands, 
and they wish to employ that power (as all power is 
employed) to increase the sense of self-importance ; they 
borrow a certain dignity from their situation as arbiters 
and judges of taste and elegance, and they are determined 
to keep it to the detriment of their employers and of 
every one else. They are dreadfully afraid there should 
be anything behind the Editor's chair, greater than the 



A Chapter on Editors. 245 

Editor's chair. That is a scandal to be prevented at all 
risks. The publication they are entrusted with for the 
amusement and edification of the town, they convert, in 
theory and practice, into a stalking horse of their own 
vanity, whims, and prejudices. They cannot write a 
whole work themselves, but they take care that the whole 
is such as they might have written : it is to have the 
Editor's mark, like the broad K, on every page, or the 
N. N. at the Tuileries ; it is to bear the same image and 
superscription — every line is to be upon oath : nothing is 
to be differently conceived or better expressed than the 
Editor could have done it. The whole begins in vanity, 
and ends too often in dulness and insipidity. 

It is utterly impossible to persuade an Editor that lie is 
nobody. As Mr. Home Tooke said, on his trial for a 
libel before Lord Kenyon, " There are two parties in this 
cause — myself and the jury ; the judge and the crier of 
the court attend in their respective places :" so, in every 
periodical miscellany, there are two essential parties — the 
writers and the public ; the Editor and the printer's devil 
are merely the mechanical instruments to bring them 
together. There is a secret consciousness of this on the 
part of the Conductor of the Literary Diligence, that his 
place is one for show and form rather than use ; and as he 
cannot maintain his pretended superiority by what he 
does himself, he thinks to arrive at the same end by 
hindering others from doing their best. The " dog-in-the- 
manger" principle comes into full play. If an article 
has nothing to recommend it, is one of no mark or likeli- 
hood, it goes in ; there is no offence in it. If it is likely 
to strike, to draw attention, to make a noise, then every 
syllable is scanned, every objection is weighed : if grave, 
it is too grave; if witty, it is too witty. One way or 
other, it might be better ; and while this nice point is 
pending, it gives place, as a matter of course, to some- 
thing that there is no question about. 



246 A Chapter on Editors. 

The responsibility, the delicacy, the nervous appre- 
hension of the Editor, naturally increase with the probable 
effect and popularity of the contributions on which he 
has to pass judgment ; and the nearer an effusion ap- 
proaches to perfection, the more fatal is a single flaw, or 
its falling short of that superhuman standard by a hair's- 
breadth difference, to its final reception. If people are 
likely to ask, "Who wrote a certain paper in the last 

number of ?" the Editor is bound, as a point of 

honour, to baulk that impertinent curiosity on the part of 
the public. He would have it understood that all the 
articles are equally good, and may be equally his own. 
If he inserts a paper of more than the allowed average 
merit, his next care is to spoil by revising it. The sting, 
with the honey, is sure to be left out. If there is any- 
thing that pleased you in the writing, you look in vain 
for it in the proof. What might electrify the reader, 
startles the Editor. With a paternal regard for the 
interests of the public, he takes care that their tastes 
should not be pampered, and their expectations raised too 
high, by a succession of fine passages, of which it is 
impossible to continue a supply. He interposes between 
the town and their vicious appetite for. the piquant and 
high-seasoned, as we forbid children to indulge in sweet- 
meats. The trite and superficial are always to be had to 
order, and present a beautiful uniformity of appearance. 
There is no unexpected relief, no unwelcome inequality 
ol style, to disorder the nerves, or perplex the under- 
standing : the reader may read, and smile, and sleep, 
without meeting a single idea to break his repose. 

Some Editors, moreover, have a way of altering the 
first paragraph : they have then exercised their privileges, 
and let you alone for the rest of the chapter. This is like 
paying " a pepper- corn rent," or making one's bow on 
entering a room : it is being let off cheap. Others add a 
pointless conclusion of their own : it is like signing their 



A Chapter on Editors. 247 

names to the article. Some have a passion for sticking in 
the word however at every opportunity, in order to impede 
the march of the style ; and others are contented and take 
great pains (with Lindley Murray's Grammar lying open 
before them) to alter "if it is" into "if it be." An 
Editor abhors an ellipsis. If you fling your thoughts 
into continued passages, they set to work to cut them up 
into short paragraphs : if you make frequent breaks, they 
turn the tables on you that way, and throw the whole 
composition into masses. Anything to preserve the form 
and appearance of power, to make the work their own by 
mental stratagem, to stamp it by some fiction of criticism 
with their personal identity, to enable them to run away 
with the credit, and look upon themselves as the master- 
spirits of the work and of the age ! If there is any point 
they do not understand, they are sure to meddle with it, 
and mar the sense ; for it piques their self-love, and they 
think they are bound ex-officio to know better than the 
writer. Thus they substitute (at a venture, and merely 
for the sake of altering) one epithet for another, when 
perhaps the same word has occurred just before, and 
produces a cruel tautology, never considering the trouble 
you have taken to compare the context and vary the 
phraseology. 

Editors have no misplaced confidence in the powers of 
their contributors: they think by the supposition tiiy 
must be in the right from a single supercilious glance — 
and you in the wrong, after poring over a subject for a 
month. There are Editors who, if you insert the name of 
a popular actor, strike it out, and, in virtue of their 
authority, insert a favourite of their own — as a dexterous 
attorney substitutes the name of a friend in a will. Some 
Editors will let you praise nobody ; others will let you 
blame nobody. The first excites their jealousy of con- 
temporary merit : the last excites their fears, and they do 
not like to make enemies. Some insist upon giving no 



248 A Chapter on Editors. 

opinion at all, and observe an unarmed neutrality as to all 
parties and persons : it is no wonder the world think 
very little of them in return. Some Editors stand upon 
their characters for this; others for that. Some pique 
themselves upon being genteel and well-dressed ; others 
on being moral and immaculate, and do not perceive that 
the public never trouble their heads about the matter. I 
knew one Editor who openly discarded all regard to 
character and decency, and who throve by the dissolution 
of partnership, if indeed the articles were ever drawn up. 
Some Editors drink tea with a set of blue-stockings and 
literary ladies : not a whisper, not a breath that might 
blow away those fine cobwebs of the brain — 

" More subtle web Arachne cannot spin ; 
Nor those fine threads which oft we woven see 
Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee !" 

Others dine with Lords and Academicians — for God's 
sake, take care what you say ! Would you strip the 
Editor's mantel-piece of the cards of invitation that adorn 
it to select parties for the next six months ? An Editor 
takes a turn in St. James's-street, and is congratulated by 
the successive literary or political groups on all he does 
not write ; and when the mistake is found out, the true 
Simon Pure is dismissed. We have heard that it was 
well said by the proprietor of a leading journal, that he 
would take good care never to write a line in his own 
paper, as he had conflicting interests enough to manage, 
without adding literary jealousies to the number. On the 
other hand, a very good-natured and warm-hearted indi- 
vidual declared, "he would never have another man of 
talents for an Editor " (the Editor, in this case, is to the 
proprietor as the author to the Editor), " for he was tired 
of having their good things thrust in his teeth." Some 
Editors are scrubs, mere drudges, newspaper-puffs ; others 
are bullies or quacks ; others are nothing at all — they 






A Chapter on Editors. 249 

have the name, and receive a salary for it ! A literary 
sinecure is at once lucrative and highly respectable. At 
Lord's Ground there are some old hands that are famous 
for " blocking out and staying in :" it would seem that some 
of our literary veterans had taken a lesson from their 
youthful exercises at Harrow or Eton. 

All this is bad enough ; but the worst is, that Editors, 
besides their own failings, have friends who aggravate and 
take advantage of them. These self-styled friends are the 
nightshade and hemlock clinging to the work, preventing 
its growth and circulation, and dropping a slumberous 
poison from its jaundiced leaves. They form a cordon, 
an opaque mass round the Editor, and persuade him that 
they are the support, the prop, and pillar of his reputation. 
They get between him and the public, and shut out the 
light, and set aside common-sense. They pretend anxiety 
for the interest of some established organ of opinion, 
while all they want is to make it the organ of their dogmas, 
prejudices, or party. They want to be the Magazine or 
the Eeview — to wield that power covertly, to warp that 
influence to their own purposes. If they cannot do this, 
they care not if it sinks or swims. They prejudge every 
question — fly-blow every writer who is not of their own 
set. A friend of theirs has three articles in the last 

number of ; they strain every nerve and make 

pressing instances to throw a slur on a popular contribu- 
tion by another hand, in order that he may write a fourth 
in the next number. The short articles which are read by 
the vulgar, are cut down to make room for the long ones, 
which are read by nobody but the writers and their friends. 
If an opinion is expressed contrary to the shibboleth of 
the party, it is represented as an outrage on decency and 
public opinion, when in truth the public are delighted 
with the candour and boldness displayed. They would 
convert the most valuable and spirited journal into a dull 
pamphleteer, stuffed with their own lucubrations on certain 



250 A Chapter on Editors, 

heavy topics. The self-importance of these people is in 
proportion to their insignificance; and what they cannot 
do by an appeal to argument or sonnd policy, they effect 
by importunity and insinuation. They keep the Editor in 
continual alarm as to what will be said of him by the 
public, when in fact the public will think (in nine cases 
out of ten) just what he tells them. 

These people create much of the mischief. An Editor 
should have no friends— his only prompter should be the 
number of copies of the work that sell. It is superfluous 
to strike off a large impression of a work for those few 
squeamish persons who prefer lead to tinsel. Principle 
and good manners are barriers that are, in our estimate, 
inviolable : the rest is open to popular suffrage, and is not 
to be prejudged by a coterie with closed doors. Another 
difficulty lies here. An Editor should, in one sense, be a 
respectable man — a distinguished character ; otherwise he 
cannot lend his name and sanction to the work. But 
" here's the rub " — that one so graced and gifted can 
neither have his time nor his thoughts to himself. He 
who dines out loses his free agency. He may improve in 
politeness, he falls off in the pith and pungency of his 
style. A poem is dedicated to the son of the Muses : 
can the critic do otherwise than praise it? A tragedy is 
brought out by a noble friend and patron: the severe 
rules of the drama must yield in some measure to the 

amenities of private life. On the contrary, Mr. is 

a garretteer — a person that nobody knows ; his work has 
nothing but the contents to recommend it ; it sinks into ob- 
scurity, or addresses itself to the canaille. An Editor, 
then, should be an abstraction — a being in the clouds— a 

mind without a body — reason without passion. But 

where find such a one ? 



WINTERSLOW : 

ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS. 



WRITTEN THERE. 



[ 253 ] 



PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1850. 



Winterslow is a village of Wiltshire, between Salisbury 
and Andover, where my father, during a considerable 
portion of his life, spent several months of each year, 
latterly, at an ancient inn on the Great Western Eoad, 
called Winterslow Hut. One of his chief attractions 
hither were the noble woods of Tytherleigh or Tudorleigh. 
round Norman Court, the seat of Mr. Baring Wall, M.P., 
whose proffered kindness to my father, on a critical 
occasion, was thoroughly appreciated by the very sensi- 
tiveness which declined its acceptance, and will always be 
gratefully remembered by myself. Another feature was 
Clarendon Wood — whence the noble family of Clarendon 
derived their title — famous besides for the Constitutions 
signed in the palace which once rose proudly amongst its 
stately trees, but of which scarce a vestige remains. In 
another direction, within easy distance, gloams Stone- 
henge, visited by my father, less perhaps for its historical 
associations than for its appeal to the imagination, the 
upright stones seeming in the dim twilight, or in the 
drizzling mist, almost continuous in the locality, so 
many spectre-Druids, moaning over the past, and over 
their brethren prostrate about them. At no great dis- 
tance, in another direction, are the fine pictures of Lord 
Radnor, and somewhat further, those of Wilton House. 
But the chief happiness was the thorough quiet of the 
place, the sole interruption of which was the passage, to 
and fro, of the London mails. The Hut stands in a 



254 Preface to the Edition of 1850. 

valley, equidistant about a mile from two tolerably high 
hills, at the summit of which, on their approach either 
way, the guards used to blow forth their admonition to 
the hostler. The sound, coming through the clear, pure 
air, was another agreeable feature in the day, reminis- 
centiary of the great city that my father so loved and so 
loathed. In olden times, when we lived in the village 
itself — a mile up the hill opposite — behind the Hut, 
Salisbury Plain stretches away mile after mile of open 
space — -the reminiscence of the metropolis would be, from 
time to time, furnished in the pleasantest of ways by the 
presence of some London friends; among these, dearly 
loved and honoured there, as everywhere else, Charles and 
Mary Lamb paid us frequent visits, rambling about all 
the time, thorough Londoners in a thoroughly country 
place, delighted and wondering and wondered at. For 
such reasons, and for the other reason, which I mention 
incidentally, that Winterslow is my own native place, I 
have given its name to this collection of " Essays and 
Characters written there;" as, indeed, practically were 
very many of his works, for it was there that most of his 
thinking was done. 

William Hazlitt. 
Chelsea, Jan. 1850. 



255 ] 



ESSAY I. 1 
My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

My father was a Dissenting Minister, at Wem, in Shrop- 
shire; and in the year 1798 (the figures that compose the 
date are to me like the " dreaded name of Demogorgon") 
Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Eowe 
in the spiritual charge of a Unitarian Congregation there. 
He did not come till late on the Saturday afternoon before 
he was to preach ; and Mr. Eowe, who himself went down 
to the coach, in a state of anxiety and expectation, to look 
for the arrival of his successor, could find no one at all 
answering the description but a round-faced man, in a 
short black coat (like a shooting jacket) which hardly 
seemed to have been made for him, but who seemed to be 
talking at a great rate to his fellow passengers. Mr. 
Eowe had scarce returned to give an account of his 
disappointment when the round-faced man in black en- 
tered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject by begin- 
ning to talk. He did not cease while he stayed ; nor has 
he since, that I know of. He held the good town of 
Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three weeks that he 
remained there, " fluttering the proud Salopians, like an 
eagle in a dove-cote;" and the Welch mountains that 
skirt the horizon with their tempestuous confusion, agree 
to have heard no such mystic sounds since the days of 

" High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay." 

As we passed along between Wem and Shrewsbury, and I 
eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or 

1 First printed as a sketch in the Examiner newspaper in 1817, 
and republished, without alteration, in Political Essays, 1819. In its 
present form it originally appeared in the first volume of the 
Liberal : Verse and Prose from the South, 1823. It is reprinted in 
the Literary Remains, 1830. — En. 



256 My First Acquaintance ivith Poets. 

the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak-trees by the 
road-side, a sound was in my ears as of a Syren's song ; I 
was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep ; but I 
had no notion then that I should ever be able to express 
my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint- 
allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, 
like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. 
I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a 
worm by the way-side, crushed, bleeding, lifeless ; but 
now, bursting the deadly bands that " bound them, 

u With Styx nine times round them " 

my ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their 
plumes, catch the golden light of other years. My soul 
has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, 
with longings infinite and unsatisfied ; my heart, shut up 
in the prison-house of this rude clay, has never found, nor 
will it ever find, a heart to speak to ; but that my under- 
standing also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at 
length found a language to express itself, I owe to 
Coleridge. But this is not to my purpose. 

My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, and was in 
the habit of exchanging visits with Mr. Kowe, and with 
Mr. Jenkins of Whitchurch (nine miles farther on), 
according to the custom of Dissenting Ministers in each 
other's neighbourhood. A line of communication is thus 
established, by which the flame of civil and religious 
liberty is kept alive, and nourishes its smouldering 
fire unquenchable, like the fires in the Agamemnon of 
iEschylus, placed at different stations, that waited for ten 
long years to announce with their blazing pyramids the 
destruction of Troy. Coleridge had agreed to come over 
and see my father, according to the courtesy of the coun- 
try, as Mr. Kowe's probable successor ; but in the mean- 
time, I had gone to hear him preach the Sunday after his 
arrival. A poet and a philosopher getting up into a 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 257 

Unitarian pulpit to preach the gospel, was a romance in 
these degenerate days, a sort of revival of the primitive 
spirit of Christianity, which was not to be resisted. 

It was in January of 1798, that I rose one morning 
before daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this 
celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I have 
to live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, 
raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798. B y 
a des impressions que ni le terns ni les cir Constances peuvent 
effacer. Dusse-je vivre des siecles entiers, le donx terns 
de ma jeunesse ne pent renaitre pour moi, ni s effacer 
jamais dans ma memoir e. When I got there, the organ 
was playing the 100th Psalm, and when it was done, 
Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, " And he went 
up into the mountain to pray, himself, alone." As he 
gave out this text, his voice " rose like a steam of rich 
distilled perfumes," and when he came to the two last 
words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it 
seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had 
echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that 
prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the 
universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, " of 
one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, 
and whose food was locusts and wild honey/'" The 
preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle 
dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and 
war ; upon church and state — not their alliance but their 
separation — on the spirit of the world and the spirit of 
Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one 
another. He talked of those who had " inscribed the 
cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore." 
He made a poetical and pastoral excursion — and to show 
the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast between 
the simple shepherd-boy, driving his team afield, or sitting 
under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, " as though he 
should never be old," and the same poor country lad, 



258 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an 
alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his 
hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long 
cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of 
the profession of blood : 

" Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung." 

And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I 
had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philo- 
sophy had met together. Truth and Genius had embraced, 
under the eye and with the sanction of Eeligion. This 
was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well satis- 
fied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan 
through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an 
emblem of the good cause ; and the cold dank drops of 
dew, that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle, had 
something genial and refreshing in them ; for there was a 
spirit of hope and youth in all nature, that turned every- 
thing into good. The face of nature had not then the 
brand of Jus Divinum on it : 

" Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe." 

On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired speaker 
came. I was called down into the room where he was, 
and went half-hoping, half-afraid. He received me very 
graciously, and I listened for a long time without uttering 
a word. I did not suffer in his opinion by my silence. 
" For those two hours," he afterwards was pleased to say, 
" he was conversing with William Hazlitt's forehead I" 
His appearance was different from what I had anticipated 
from seeing him before. At a distance, and in the dim 
light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wildness in 
his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted 
with the small-pox. His complexion was at that time 
clear, and even bright — 

" As are the childien of von azure sheen." 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 259 

His forehead was broad and high, light as if built of ivory, 
with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling be- 
neath them, like a sea with darkened lustre. " A certain 
tender bloom his face o'erspread," a purple tinge as we 
see it in the pale thoughtful complexions of the Spanish 
portrait-painters, Murillo and Valasquez. His mouth was 
gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent ; his chin good-humoured 
and round ; but his nose, the rudder of the face, the index 
of the will, was small, feeble, nothing — like what he has 
done. It might seem that the genius of his face as from, 
a height surveyed and projected him (with sufficient 
capacity and huge aspiration) into the world unknown 
of thought and imagination, with nothing to support or 
guide his veering purpose, as if Columbus had launched 
his adventurous course for the New World in a scallop, 
without oars or compass. So, at least, I comment on it 
after the event. Coleridge, in his person, was rather 
above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like 
Lord Hamlet, " somewhat fat and pursy." His hair (now, 
alas ! grey) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and 
fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long pen- 
dulous hair is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds 
tend heavenward ; and is traditionally inseparable (though 
of a different colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ought 
to belong, as a character, to all who preach Christ crucified, 
and Coleridge was at that time one of those ! 

It was curious to observe the contrast between him and 
my father, who was a veteran in the cause, and then de- 
clining into the vale of years. He had been a poor Irish 
lad, carefully brought up by his parents, and sent to the 
University of Glasgow (where he studied under Adam 
Smith) to prepare him for his future destination. It was 
his mother's proudest wish to see her son a Dissenting 
Minister. So, if we look back to past generations (as far 
as eye can reach), we see the same hopes, fears, wishes, 
followed by the same disappointments* throbbing in the 



260 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

human heart ; and so we may see them (if we look forward) 
rising up for ever, and disappearing, like vapourish bubbles, 
in the human breast ! After being tossed about from con- 
gregation to congregation in the heats of the Unitarian 
controversy, and squabbles about the American war, he 
had been relegated to an obscure village, where he was to 
spend the last thirty years of his life, far from the only 
converse that he loved, the talk about disputed texts of 
Scripture, and the cause of civil and religious liberty. 
Here he passed his days, repining, but resigned, in the 
study of the Bible, and the perusal of the Commentators 
— huge folios, not easily got through, one of which would 
outlast a winter ! Why did he pore on these from morn 
to night (with the exception of a walk in the fields or a 
turn in the garden to gather broccoli-plants or kidney 
beans of his own rearing, with no small degree of pride 
and pleasure) ? Here were "no figures nor no fantasies" — 
neither poetry nor philosophy — nothing to dazzle, nothing 
to excite modern curiosity ; but to his lack-lustre eyes 
there appeared within the pages of the ponderous, un- 
wieldy, neglected tomes, the sacred name of JEHOVAH 
in Hebrew capitals : pressed down by the weight of the 
style, worn to the last fading thinness of the understanding, 
there were glimpses, glimmering notions of the patriarchal 
wanderings, with palm-trees hovering in the horizon, and 
processions of camels at the distance of three thousand 
years; there was Moses with the Burning Bush, the 
number of the Twelve Tribes, types, shadows, glosses 
on the law and the prophets ; there were discussions (dull 
enough) on the age of Methuselah, a mighty speculation! 
there were outlines, rude guesses at the shape of Noah's 
Ark and of the riches of Solomon's Temple ; questions as 
to the date of the creation, predictions of the end of all 
things ; the great lapses of time, the strange mutations of 
the globe were unfolded with the voluminous leaf, as it 
turned over ; and though the soul might slumber with an 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 261 

hieroglyphic veil of inscrutable mysteries drawn over it, 
yet it was in a slumber ill-exchanged for all the sharpened 
realities of sense, wit, fancy, or reason. My father's life 
was comparatively a dream ; but it was a dream of infinity 
and eternity, of death, the resurrection, and a judgment to 
come! 

No two individuals were ever more unlike than were the 
host and his guest. A poet was to my father a sort of 
nondescript ; yet whatever added grace to the Unitarian 
cause was to him welcome. He could hardly have been 
more surprised or pleased, if our visitor had worn wings. 
Indeed, his thoughts had wings : and as the silken sounds 
rustled round our little wainscoted parlour, my father 
threw back his spectacles over his forehead, his white 
hairs mixing with its sanguine hue ; and a smile of de- 
light beamed across his rugged, cordial face, to think that 
Truth had found a new ally in Fancy! 1 Besides, 
Coleridge seemed to take considerable notice of me, and 
that of itself was enough. He talked very familiarly, but 
agreeably, and glanced over a variety of subjects. At 
dinner-time he grew more animated, and dilated in a very 
edifying manner on Mary Wolstonecraft and Mackintosh. 
The last, he said, he considered (on my father's speaking 
of his Vindicice Gallicce as a capital performance) as a clever, 
scholastic man — a master of the topics — or, as the ready 
warehouseman of letters, who knew exactly where to lay 
his hand on what he wanted, though the goods were not 
his own. He thought him no match for Burke, either in 

1 My father was one of those who mistook his talent, after all. 
He used to be very much dissatisfied that I preferred his Letters to 
his Sermons. The last were forced and dry ; the first came naturally 
from him. For ease, half-plays on words, and a supine, monkish, 
indolent pleasantry, I have never seen them equalled. [The Sermons 
of the Rev. William Hazlitt were printed by subscription in 1808, 
2 vols. 8vo. He published other tracts and discourses. A letter of 
hi3, contributed to the Monthly Repository in July, 1808, will be 
found reprinted in the Memoirs of William Hazlitt, 1867, i, 267-9 ] 



262 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

style or matter. Burke was a metaphysician, Mackintosh 
a mere logician. Burke was an orator (almost a poet ) who 
reasoned in figures, because he had an eye for nature : 
Mackintosh, on the other hand, was a rhetorician, who 
had only an eye to commonplaces. On this I ventured 
to say that I had always entertained a great opinion of 
Burke, and that (as far as I could find) the speaking of 
him with contempt might be made the test of a vulgar, 
democratical mind. This was the first observation I ever 
made to Coleridge, and he said it was a very just and 
striking one. I remember the leg of Welsh mutton and 
the turnips on the table that day had the finest flavour 
imaginable. Coleridge added that Mackintosh and Tom 
Wedgwood (of whom, however, he spoke highly) had 
expressed a very indifferent opinion of his friend Mr. 
Wordsworth, on which he remarked to them — "He strides 
on so far before you, that he dwindles in the distance ! " 
Godwin had once boasted to him of having carried on an 
argument with Mackintosh for three hours with dubious 
success ; Coleridge told him — " If there had been a man 
of genius in the room he would have settled the question 
in fLYe minutes." He asked me if I had ever seen Mary 
Wolstonecraft, and I said, I had once for a few moments, 
and that she seemed to me to turn off Godwin's objections 
to something she advanced with quite a playful, easy air. 
He replied, that " this was only one instance of the ascen- 
dency which people of imagination exercised over those of 
mere intellect." He did not rate Godwin very high 1 (this 
was caprice or prejudice, real or affected), but he had a 
great idea of Mrs. Wolstonecraft's powers of conversation ; 
none at all of her talent for book-making. We talked a 

1 He complained in particular of the presumption of his attempt- 
ing io establish the future immortality of man, "without" (as he 
said) '• knowing what Death was or what Life was'' — and the tone 
in which he pronounced these two words seemed to convey a com- 
plete image of both. 



My First Acquaintance ivith Poets. 263 

little about Holcroft. He had been asked if be was not 
much struck with him, and he said, he thought himself in 
more danger of being struck by him. I complained that 
he would not let me get on at all, for he required a defi- 
nition of every the commonest word, exclaiming, " "What 
do you mean by a sensation, Sir ? What do you mean by 
an idea?" This, Coleridge said, was barricadoing the 
road to truth ; it was setting up a turnpike-gate at every 
step we took. I forget a great number of things, many 
more than I remember ; but the day passed off pleasantly, 
and the next morning Mr. Coleridge was to return to 
Shrewsbury. When I came down to breakfast, I found 
that he had just received a letter from his friend, T. Wedg- 
wood, making him an offer of 150Z. a year if he chose to 
waive his present pursuit, and devote himself entirely to 
the study of poetry and philosophy. Coleridge seemed to 
make up his mind to close with this proposal in the act of 
tying on one of his shoes. It threw an additional damp 
on his departure. It took the w T ay ward enthusiast quite 
from us to cast him into Deva's winding vales, or by the 
shores of old romance. Instead of living at ten miles' 
distance, of being the pastor of a Dissenting congregation 
at Shrewsbury, he was henceforth to inhabit the Kill of 
Parnassus, to be a Shepherd on the Delectable Mountains. 
Alas ! I knew not the way thither, and felt very little 
gratitude for Mr. Wedgwood's bounty. I was presently 
relieved from this dilemma; for Mr. Coleridge, asking 
for a pen and ink, and going to a table to write something 
on a bit of card, advanced towards me with undulating 
step, and giving me the precious document, said that that 
was his address, Mr. Coleridge, Nether-Stowey, Somersetshire ; 
and that he should be glad to see me there in a few weeks' 
time, and, if I chose, would come half-way to meet me. 
I was not less surprised than the shepherd-boy (this simile 
is to be found in Cassandra), when he sees a thunderbolt 
fall close at his feet. I stammered out my acknowledg- 



264 My First Acquaintance ivith Poets 

ments and acceptance of this offer (I thought Mr. Wedg- 
wood's annuity a trifle to it) as well as I could ; and this 
mighty business being settled, the poet preacher took 
leave, and I accompanied him six miles on the road. It 
was a fine morning in the middle of winter, and he talked 
the whole way. The scholar in Chaucer is described as 

going 

" Sounding on his way." 

So Coleridge went on his. In digressing, in dilating, 
in passing from subject to subject, he appeared to me to 
float in air, to slide on ice. He told me in confidence 
(going along) that he should have preached two sermons 
before he accepted the situation at Shrewsbury, one on 
Infant Baptism, the other on the Lord's Supper, showing 
that he could not administer either, which would have 
effectually disqualified him for the object in view. I 
observed that he continually crossed me on the way by 
shifting from one side of the footpath to the other. This 
struck me as an odd movement ; but I did not at that time 
connect it with any instability of purpose or involuntary 
change of principle, as I have done since. He seemed 
unable to keep on in a straight line. He spoke slightingly 
of Hume (whose Essay on Miracles he said was stolen 
from an objection started in one of South' s sermons — 
Credat Judceus Appella /) I was not very much pleased at 
this account of Hume, for I had just been reading, with 
infinite relish, that completest of all metaphysical clioke- 
pears, his Treatise on Human Nature, to which the Essays 
in point of scholastic subtilty and close reasoning, are 
mere elegant trifling, light summer reading. Coleridge 
even denied the excellence of Hume's general style, which 
I think betrayed a want of taste or candour. He however 
made me amends by the manner in which he spoke of 
Berkeley. He dwelt particularly on his Essay on Vision 
as a masterpiece of analytical reasoning. So it un- 
doubtedly is. He was exceedingly angry with Dr. Johnson 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 265 

for striking the stone with his foot, in allusion to this 
author's Theory of Matter and Spirit, and saying, " Thus 
I confute him, Sir." Coleridge drew a parallel (I don't 
know how he brought about the connection) between 
Bishop Berkeley and Tom Paine. He said the one was 
an instance of a subtle, the other of an acute mind, than 
which no two things could be more distinct. The one 
was a shop -boy's quality, the other the characteristic of a 
philosopher. He considered Bishop Butler as a true 
philosopher, a profound and conscientious thinker, a 
genuine reader of nature and his own mind. He did not 
speak of his Analogy, but of his Sermons at the Bolls' 
Chapel, of which I had never heard. Coleridge somehow 
always contrived to prefer the unknown to the known. In 
this instance he was right. The Analogy is a tissue of 
sophistry, of wire-drawn, theological special- pleading ; 
the Sermons (with the preface to them) are in a fine vein 
of deep, matured reflection, a candid appeal to our observa- 
tion of human nature, without pedantry and without bias. 
I told Coleridge I had written a few remarks, and was 
sometimes foolish enough to believe that I had made a 
discovery on the same subject (the Natural disinterested- 
ness of the Human Mind) 1 — and I tried to explain my view 
of it to Coleridge, who listened with great willingness, 
but I did not succeed in making myself understood. I 
sat down to the task shortly afterwards for the twentieth 
time, got new pens and paper, determined to make clear 
work of it, wrote a few meagre sentences in the skeleton 
style of a mathematical demonstration, stopped half-way 
down the second page ; and, after trying in vain to pump 
up any words, images, notions, apprehensions, facts, or 
observations, from that gulf of abstraction in which I 
had plunged myself for four or five years preceding, gave 
up the attempt as labour in vain, and shed tears of help- 

1 The Essay on the Principles of Human Action, begun about this 
time, but not completed and published till 1805. — Ed. 



266 My First Acquaintance ivith Poets. 



less despondency on the blank, unfinished paper. I can 
write fast enough now. Am I better than I was then ? 
Oh no ! One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not 
being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and 
flippancy in the world. Would that I could go back to 
what I then was ! Why can we not revive past times as 
we can revisit old places ? If I had the quaint Muse of 
Sir Philip Sidney to assist me, I would write a Sonnet to 
the Boad between Wem and Shrewsbury, and immortalise 
every step of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I 
would swear that the very milestones had ears, and that 
Harmer-hill stooped with all its pines, to listen to a poet, 
as he passed ! I remember but one other topic of discourse 
in this walk. He mentioned Paley, praised the naturalness 
and clearness of his style, but condemned his sentiments, 
thought him a mere time-serving casuist, and said that 
" the fact of his work on Moral and Political Philosophy 
being made a text-book in our Universities was a disgrace 
to the national character." We parted at the six-mile 
stone ; and I returned homeward, pensive, but much 
pleased. I had met with unexpected notice from a person 
whom I believed to have been prejudiced against me. 
" Kind and affable to me had been his condescension, and 
should be honoured ever with suitable regard." He was 
the first poet I had known, and he certainly answered to 
that inspired name. I had heard a great deal of his powers 
of conversation and was not disappointed. In fact, I never 
met with anything at all like them, either before or since. 
I could easily credit the accounts which were circulated 
of his holding forth to a large party of ladies and gentle- 
men, an evening or two before, on the Berkeleian Theory, 
when he made the whole material universe look like a 
transparency of fine words ; and another story (which I 
believe he has somewhere told himself) of his being 
asked to a party at Birmingham, of his smoking 
tobacco and going to sleep after dinner on a sofa, 






My First Acquaintance tvith Poets. 267 

where the company found, him to their no small sur- 
prise, which was increased to wonder when he started 
up of a sudden, and rubbing his eyes, looked about him, 
and launched into a three-hours' description of the third 
heaven, of which he had had a dream, very different from 
Mr. Southey's Vision of Judgment, and also from that 
other Vision of Judgment, which Mr. Murray, the Secretary 
of the Bridge- street Junta, took into his especial keeping. 

On my way back I had a sound in my ears — it was the 
voice of Fancy ; I had a light before me — it was the face 
of Poetry. The one still lingers there, the other has not 
quitted my side ! Coleridge, in truth, met me half-way on 
the ground of philosophy, or I should not have been won 
over to his imaginative creed. I had an uneasy, pleasur- 
able sensation all the time, till I was to visit him. During 
those months the chill breath of winter gave me a welcom- 
ing ; the vernal air was balm and inspiration to me. The 
golden sunsets, the silver star of evening, lighted me on 
my way to new hopes and prospects. I was to visit Cole- 
ridge in the spring. This circumstance was never absent 
from my thoughts, and mingled with all my feelings. I 
wrote to him at the time proposed, and received an answer 
postponing my intended visit for a week or two, but very 
cordially urging me to complete my promise then. This 
delay did not damp, but rather increased my ardour. In 
the meantime, I went to Llangollen Yale, by way of in- 
itiating myself in the mysteries of natural scenery ; and I 
must say I was enchanted with it. I had been reading 
Coleridge's description of England in his fine Ode on the 
Departing Year, and I applied it, con amore, to the objects 
before me. That valley was to me (in a manner) the 
cradle of a new existence : in the river that winds through 
it, my spirit was baptized in the waters of Helicon ! 

I returned home, and soon after set out on my journey 
with unworn heart, and untired feet. My way lay through 
Worcester and Gloucester, and by Upton, where I thought 



268 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

of Tom Jones and the adventure of the muff. I remember 
getting completely wet through one day, and stopping at 
an inn (I think it was at Tewkesbury) where I sat up all 
night to read Paul and Virginia. Sweet were the showers 
in early youth that drenched my body, and sweet the 
drops of pity that fell upon' the books I read ! I recollect 
a remark of Coleridge's upon this very book that nothing 
could show the gross indelicacy of French manners and 
the entire corruption of their imagination more strongly 
than the behaviour of the heroine in the last fatal scene, 
who turns away from a person on board the sinking vessel, 
that offers to save her life, because he has thrown off his 
clothes to assist him in swimming. Was this a time to 
think of such a circumstance ? I once hinted to Words- 
worth, as we were sailing in his boat on Grasmere lake, 
that I thought he had borrowed the idea of his Poems on 
the Naming of Places from the local inscriptions of the 
same kind in Paul and Virginia. He did not own the 
obligation, and stated some distinction without a difference 
in defence of his claim to originality. Any, the slighest 
variation, would be sufficient for this purpose in his mind ; 
for whatever he added or altered would inevitably be 
worth all that any one else had done, and contain the 
marrow of the sentiment. I was still two days before the 
time fixed for my arrival, for I had taken care to set out 
early enough. I stopped these two days at Bridgewater ; 
and when I was tired of sauntering on the banks of its 
muddy river, returned to the inn and read Camilla. So 
have I loitered my life away, reading books, looking at 
pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on 
what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing 
to make me happy ; but wanting that have wanted 
everything ! 

I arrived, and was well received. The country about 
Nether Stowey is beautiful, green and hilly, and near the 
sea-shore. I saw it but the other day, after an interval 



My First Acquaintance with Poets, 269 

of twenty years, from a hill near Taunton. How was 
the map of my life spread out before me, as the map of 
the country lay at my feet ! In the afternoon, Coleridge 
took me over to All-Foxden, a romantic old family mansion 
of the St. Aubins, where Wordsworth lived. It was then 
in the possession of a friend of the poet's, who gave him 
the free use of it. Somehow, that period (the time just 
after the French Eevolution) was not a time when nothing 
was given for nothing. The mind opened and a softness 
might be perceived coming over the heart of individuals, 
beneath " the scales that fence" our self-interest. Words- 
worth himself was from home, but his sister kept house, 
and set before us a frugal repast ; and we had free access 
to her brother's poems, the Lyrical Ballads, 1 which were 
still in manuscript, or in the form of Sybilline Leaves. I 
dipped into a few of these with great satisfaction, and with 
the faith of a novice. I slept that night in an old room 
with blue hangings, and covered with the round-faced 
family portraits of the age of George I. and II., and from 
the wooded declivity of the adjoining park that overlooked 
my window, at the dawn of day, could 

" hear the loud stag speak." 

In the outset of life (and particularly at this time I 
felt it so) our imagination has a body to it. We are in a 
state between sleeping and waking, and have indistinct 
but glorious glimpses of strange shapes, and there is always 
something to come better than what we see. As in our 
dreams the fulness of the blood gives warmth and reality 
to the coinage of the brain, so in youth our ideas are 
clothed, and fed, and pampered with our good spirits ; we 
breathe thick with thoughtless happiness, the weight of 
future years presses on the strong pulses of the heart, and 
we repose with undisturbed faith in truth and good. As 

1 The Ballads were not published till this year. Wordsworth, 
however, was known as the author of Descriptive Sketches, 1793, and 
the Evening Walk, 1793. — Ed. 



270 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

we advance, we exhaust our fund of enjoyment and of 
hope. We are no longer wrapped in lamUs-wool, lulled 
in Elysium. As we taste the pleasures of life, their spirit 
evaporates, the sense palls; and nothing is left but the 
phantoms, the lifeless shadows of what has been ! 

That morning, as soon as breakfast was over, we 
strolled out into the park, and seating ourselves on the 
trunk of an old ash-tree that stretched along the ground, 
Coleridge read aloud with a sonorous and musical voice, 
the ballad of Betty Foy. I was not critically or scepti- 
cally inclined. 1 saw touches of truth and nature, and 
took the rest for granted. But in the Thorn, the Mad 
Mother, and the Complaint of a Poor Indian Woman, I felt 
that deeper power and pathos which have been since 
acknowledged, 

" In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite," 

as the characteristics of this author ; and the sense of a 
new style and a new spirit in poetry came over me. It 
had to me something of the effect that arises from the 
turning up of the fresh soil, or of the first welcome breath 
of Spring : 

*' While yet the trembling year is unconfirmed." 

Coleridge and myself walked back to Stowey that evening, 
and his voice sounded high 

" Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," 

as we passed through echoing grove, by fairy stream or 
waterfall, gleaming in the summer moonlight ! He 
lamented that Wordsworth was not prone enough to 
believe in the traditional superstitions of the place, and 
that there was a something corporeal, a matter-of-fact-ness, 
a clinging to the palpable, or often to the petty, in his 
poetry, in consequence. His genius was not a spirit that 
descended to him through the air ; it sprung out of the 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 271 

ground like a flower, or unfolded itself from a green 
spray, on which the goldfinch sang. He said, however (if 
I remember right), that this objection must be confined to 
his descriptive pieces, that his philosophic poetry had a 
grand and comprehensive spirit in it, so that his soul 
seemed to inhabit the universe like a palace, and to 
discover truth by intuition, rather than by deduction. 
The next day Wordsworth arrived from Bristol at 
Coleridge's cottage. I think I see him now. He 
answered in some degree to his friend's description of 
him, but was more gaunt and Don Quixote-like. He was 
quaintly dressed (according to the costume of that uncon- 
strained period) in a brown fustian jacket and striped 
pantaloons. There was something of a roll, a lounge in 
his gait, not unlike his own Peter Bell. There was a 
severe, worn pressure of thought about his temples, a 
fire in his eye (as if he saw something in objects more 
than the outward appearance), an intense, high, narrow 
forehead, a Eoman nose, cheeks furrowed by strong 
purpose and feeling, and a convulsive inclination to 
laughter about the mouth, a good deal at variance with 
the solemn, stately expression of the rest of his face. 
Chantrey's bust wants the marking traits ; but he was 
teased into making it regular and heavy : Hay don's 
head of him, introduced into the Entrance of Christ 
into Jerusalem, is the most like his drooping weight of 
thought and expression. He sat down and talked very 
naturally and freely, with a mixture of clear, gushing 
accents in his voice, a deep guttural intonation, and a 
strong tincture of the northern burr, like the crust on 
wine. He instantly began to make havoc of the half of a 
Cheshire cheese on the table, and said, triumphantly, that 
" his marriage with experience had not been so productive 
as Mr. Southey's in teaching him a knowledge of the good 
things of this life." He had been to see the Castle 
Spectre by Monk Lewis, while at Bristol, and described it 



272 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

very well, He said u it fitted tlie taste of the audience 
like a glove." This ad captandum merit was however by 
no means a recommendation of it, according to the severe 
principles of the new school, which reject rather than 
court popular effect. Wordsworth, looking out of the 
low, latticed window, said, " How beautifully the sun sets 
on that yellow bank ! " I thought within myself, " With 
what eyes these poets see nature ! " and ever after, when I 
saw the sun-set stream upon the objects facing it, con- 
ceived I had made a discovery, or thanked Mr. Words- 
worth for having made one for me ! We went over to 
All-Foxden again the day following, and Wordsworth 
read us the story of Peter Bell in the open air ; and the 
comment upon it by his face and voice was very different 
from that of some later critics ! Whatever might be 
thought of the poem, " his face was as a book where men 
might read strange matters," and he announced the fate of 
his hero in prophetic tones. There is a chaunt in the 
recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts 
as a spell upon the hearer, and disarms the judgment. 
Perhaps they have deceived themselves by making habitual 
use of this ambiguous accompaniment. Coleridge's man- 
ner is more full, animated, and varied; Wordsworth's 
more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be 
termed more dramatic, the other more lyrical. Coleridge 
has told me that he himself liked to compose in walking 
over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling 
branches of a copse-wood; whereas Wordsworth always 
wrote (if he could) walking up and down a straight 
gravel walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his 
verse met with no collateral interruption. Eeturning that 
same evening, I got into a metaphysical argument with 
Wordsworth, while Coleridge was explaining the different 
notes of the nightingale to his sister, in which we neither 
of us succeeded in making ourselves perfectly clear and 
intelligible. Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey 






My First Acquaintance with Poets. 273 

and in the neighbourhood, generally devoting the after- 
noons to a delightful chat in an arbour made of bark 
by the poet's friend Tom Poole, sitting under two fine 
elm-trees, and listening to the bees humming round us, 
while we quaffed our flip. It was agreed, among other 
things, that we should make a jaunt down the Bristol 
Channel, as far as Linton. We set off together on foot, 
Coleridge, John Chester, and I. This Chester was a 
native of Nether Stowey, one of those who were attracted 
to Coleridge's discourse as flies are to honey, or bees in 
swarming-time to the sound of a brass pan. He " followed 
in the chase like a dog who hunts, not like one that made 
up the cry." He had on a brown cloth coat, boots, and 
corduroy breeches, was low in stature, bow-legged, had a 
drag in his walk like a drover, which he assisted by a 
hazel switch, and kept on a sort of trot by the side of 
Coleridge, like a running footman by a state coach, that 
he might not lose a syllable or sound that fell from 
Coleridge's lips. He told me his private opinion, that 
Coleridge was a wonderful man. He scarcely opened his 
lips, much less offered an opinion the whole way : yet of 
the three, had I to choose during that journey, I would be 
John Chester. He afterwards followed Coleridge into 
Germany, where the Kantean philosophers were puzzled 
how to bring him under any of their categories. When 
he sat down at table with his idol, John's felicitv was 
complete ; Sir Walter Scott's, or Mr. Blackwood's, when 
they sat down at the same table with the King, was not 
more so. We passed Dunster on our right, a small town 
between the brow of a hill and the sea. I remember 
eyeing it wistfully as it lay below us : contrasted with the 
woody scene around, it looked as clear, as pure, as 
embrowned and ideal as any landscape I have seen since, of 
Gaspar Poussin's or Domenichino's. We had a long day's 
march (our feet kept time to the echoes of Coleridge's 
tongue) through Minehead and by the Blue Anchor, 

T 



274 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

and on to Linton, which we did not reach till near 
midnight, and where we had some difficulty in making a 
lodgment. We, however, knocked the people of the house 
up at last, and we were repaid for our apprehensions and 
fatigue by some excellent rashers of fried bacon and eggs. 
The view in coming along had been splendid. We 
walked for miles and miles on dark brown heaths over- 
looking the Channel, with the Welsh hills beyond, and 
at times descended into little sheltered valleys close by 
the sea-side, with a smuggler's face scowling by us, and 
then had to ascend conical hills with a path winding up 
through a coppice to a barren top, like a monk's shaven 
crown, from one of which I pointed out to Coleridge's 
notice the bare masts of a vessel on the very edge of the 
horizon, and within the red-orbed disk of the setting sun, 
like his own spectre-ship in the Ancient Mariner. At 
Linton the character of the sea-coast becomes more 
marked and rugged. There is a place called the Valley 
of Boclcs (I suspect this was only the poetical name for 
it), bedded among precipices overhanging the sea, with 
rocky caverns beneath, into which the waves dash, and 
where the sea-gull for ever wheels its screaming flight. 
On the tops of these are huge stones thrown transverse, as 
if an earthquake had tossed them there, and behind these 
is a fretwork of perpendicular rocks, something like the 
Giant's Causeway. A thunder-storm came on while we 
were at the inn, and Coleridge was running out bare- 
headed to enjoy the commotion of the elements in the 
Valley of Boclcs, but as if in spite, the clouds only 
muttered a few angry sounds, and let fall a few refreshing 
drops. Coleridge told me that he and Wordsworth were 
to have made this place the scene of a prose-tale, which 
was to have been in the manner of, but far superior to, 
the Death of Abel, but they had relinquished the design. 
In the morning of the second day, we breakfasted luxu- 
riously in an old-fashioned parlour on tea, toast, eggs, 









My First Acquaintance with Poets. 275 

and honey, in the very sight of the bee-hives from which 
it had been taken, and a garden full of thyme and wild 
flowers that had produced it. On this occasion Coleridge 
spoke of Virgil's Georgics, but not well. I do not think 
he had much feeling for the classical or elegant. 1 It was 
in this room that we found a little worn-out copy of the 
Seasons, lying in a window-seat, on which Coleridge ex- 
claimed, " That is true fame !" He said Thomson was a 
great poet, rather than a good one; his style was as 
meretricious as his thoughts were natural. He spoke of 
Cowper as the best modern poet. He said the Lyrical 
Ballads were an experiment about to be tried by him and 
Wordsworth, to see how far the public taste would endure 
poetry written in a more natural and simple style than 
had hitherto been attempted ; totally discarding the arti- 
fices of poetical diction, and making use only of such 
words as had probably been common in the most ordinary 
language since the days of Henry II. Some comparison 
was introduced between Shakspeare and Milton. He said 
u he hardly knew which to prefer. Shakspeare appeared 
to him a mere stripling in the art ; he was as tall and as 
strong, with infinitely more activity than Milton, but he 
never appeared to have come to man's estate ; or if he 
had, he would not have been a man, but a monster." He 
spoke with contempt of Gray, and with intolerance of 
Pope. He did not like the versification of the latter. 
He observed that " the ears of these couplet- writers might 
be charged with having short memories, that could not 
retain the harmony of whole passages." He thought 

1 He had no idea of pictures, of Claude or Baphael, and at this 
time I had as little as he. He sometimes gives a striking account 
at present of the Cartoons at Pisa by Buffamalco and others ; of one 
in particular, where Death is seen in the air brandishing his scythe, 
and the great and mighty of the earth shudder at his approach, 
while the beggars and the wretched kneel to him as their deliverer. 
He w T ould, of course, understand so broad and fine a moral as this at 
any time. 



276 My First Acquaintance with Poets. 

little of Junius as a writer ; he had a dislike of Dr. John- 
son ; and a much higher opinion of Burke as an orator 
and politician, than of Fox or Pitt. He, however, thought 
him very inferior in richness of style and imagery to some 
of our elder prose-writers, particularly Jeremy Taylor. 
He liked Eichardson, but not Fielding ; nor could I get 
nim to enter into the merits of Caleb Williams. 1 In short, 
he was profound and discriminating with respect to those 
authors whom he liked, and where he gave his judgment 
fair play; capricious, perverse, and prejudiced in his 
antipathies and distastes. We loitered on the " ribbed 
sea sands," in such talk as this a whole morning, and, I 
recollect, met with a curious seaweed, of which John 
Chester told us the country name! A fisherman gave 
Coleridge an account of a boy that had been drowned the 
day before, and that they had tried to save him at the risk 
of their own lives. He said " he did not know how it was 
that they ventured, but, Sir, we have a nature towards one 
another." This expression, Coleridge remarked to me, 
was a fine illustration of that theory of disinterested- 
ness which I (in common with Butler) had adopted. I 
broached to him an argument of mine to prove that 
likeness was not mere association of ideas. I said that 
the mark in the sand put one in mind of a man's foot, not 
because it was part of a former impression of a man's foot 
(for it was quite new), but because it was like the shape of 
a man's foot. He assented to the justness of this dis- 
tinction (which I have explained at length elsewhere, for 
the benefit of the curious) and John Chester listened ; not 
from any interest in the subject, but because he was 
astonished that I should be able to suggest anything to 
Coleridge that he did not already know. We returned on 
the third morning, and Coleridge remarked the silent 
cottage-smoke curling up the valleys where, a few 

1 By William Godwin. Things as they are, or the Adventures 
of Caleb WiUiams. London, 1794, 12mo, 3 vols. — Ed. 



My First Acquaintance with Poets. 277 

evenings before, we had seen the lights gleaming through 
the dark. 

In a day or two after we arrived at Stowey, we set ou , I 
on my return home, and he for Germany. It was a Sunday 
morning, and he was to preach that day for Dr. Toulmin of 
Taunton. I asked him if he had prepared anything for 
the occasion ? He said he had not even thought of the 
text, but should as soon as we parted. I did not go to 
hear him — this was a fault — but we met in the evening at 
Bridge water. The next day we had a long day's walk to 
Bristol, and sat down, I recollect, by a well-side on the 
road, to cool ourselves and satisfy our thirst, when 
Coleridge repeated to me some descriptive lines of his 
tragedy of Remorse ; which I must say became his mouth 
and that occasion better than they, some years after, did 
Mr. Elliston's and the Drury-lane boards — 

" Oh memory ! shield me from the world's poor strife, 
And give those scenes thine everlasting life." 

I saw no more of him for a year or two, during which 
period he had been wandering in the Hartz Forest, in 
Germany ; and his return was cometary, meteorous, unlike 
his setting out. It was not till some time after that I 
knew his friends Lamb and Southey. The last always 
appears to me (as I first saw him) with a commonplace 
book under his arm, and the first with a bon-mot in his 
mouth. It was at Godwin's that I met him with Holcroft 
and Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which 
was the best — Man as lie teas, or man as lie is to be. " Give 
me," says Lamb, " man as he is not to be." This saying- 
was the beginning of a friendship between us, which I 
believe still continues. Enough of this for the present. 

" But there is matter for another rhyme, 
And I to this may add a second tale." 



278 Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 



ESSAY' II. 

Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 1 

u Come like shadows — so depart." 

Lamb it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well 
as the defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. 
As, however, he would undertake neither, I suppose I 
must do both, 2 a task for which he would have been much 
fitter, no less from the temerity than the felicity of his 
pen — 

u Never so sure our rapture to create 
As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." 

Compared with him, I shall, I fear, make but a common- 
place piece of business of it ; but I should be loth the 
idea was entirely lost, and besides I may avail my- 
self of some hints of his in the progress of it. I am 
sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of 
other people than expounder of my own. I pursue the 
one too far into paradox or mysticism ; the others I am 
not bound to follow farther than I like, or than seems fair 
and reasonable. 

On the question being started, Ayrton said, " 1 suppose 
the two first persons you would choose to see would be 
the two greatest names in English literature, Sir Isaac 
Kewton and Mr. Locke?" In this Ayrton, as usual, 
reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing 
at the expression of Lamb's face, in which inijjatience was 
restrained by courtesy. " Yes, the greatest names," he 
stammered out hastily, " but they were not persons — not 

1 Printed in the Literary Remains, 1836. — Ed. The paper was 
written about 1820, but the event which it purports to describe 
occurred many years before. 

2 A Defence of Guy Faux, icith some Observations on Heroism, 
appeared in the Examiner for 1821 ; but see Memoirs of William 
HazlitL 1867. i. 316-17.— Ed. 



Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 279 

persons. " — " Not persons?" said Ayrton, looking wise and 
foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be 
premature. " That is," rejoined Lamb, " not characters, 
you know. By Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you 
mean the Essay on the Human Understanding, and the 
Principia, which we have to this day. Beyond their 
contents there is nothing personally interesting in the 
men. But what we want to see any one bodily for, is 
when there is something peculiar, striking in the 
individuals, more than we can learn from their writings, 
and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and 
Newton were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But 
who could paint Shakspeare ?" — " Ay," retorted Ayrton, 
" there it is ; then I suppose you would prefer seeing him 
and Milton instead ?" — " No," said Lamb, " neither. I 
have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on book- 
stalls, in frontispieces and on mantel-pieces, that I am 
quite tired of the everlasting repetition : and as to Milton's 
face, the impressions that have come down to us of it I do 
not like ; it is too starched and puritanical ; and I should 
be afraid of losing some of the manna of his poetry in the 
leaven of his countenance and the precisian's band and 
gown." — " I shall guess no more," said Ayrton. " Who is 
it, then, you would like to see ' in his habit as he lived/ 
if you had your choice of the whole range of English 
literature ?" Lamb then named Sir Thomas Browne and 
Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, as the 
two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to 
encounter on the floor of his apartment in their night- 
gown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting 
with them. At this Ayrton laughed outright, and con- 
ceived Lamb was jesting with him ; but as no one followed 
his example, he thought there might be something in it, 
and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical 
suspense. Lamb then (as well as I can remember a 
conversation that passed twenty years ago — how time 



280 Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 

slips !) went on as follows. " The reason why I pitch 
upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, 
and they themselves the most mysterious of personages. 
They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark 
hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them 
the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should 
suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson : I have no 
curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him; he and 
Bos well together have pretty well let me into the secret 
of what passed through his mind. He and other writers 
like him are sufficiently explicit : my friends whose repose 
I should be tempted to disturb (were it in my power), are 
implicit, inextricable, inscrutable. 

" When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose com- 
position the Urn-burial, I seem to myself to look into a 
deep abyss, at the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich 
treasure ; or it is like a stately labyrinth of doubt and 
withering speculation, and I would invoke the spirit of 
the author to lead me through it. Besides, who would 
not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having 
himself been twice married, wished that mankind were 
propagated like trees ! As to Fulke Greville, he is like 
nothing but one of his own ' Prologues spoken by the 
ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly formidable and 
inviting personage : his style is apocalyptical, cabalistical, 
a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie ; and for 
the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt 
of an encounter with so portentous a commentator !" — I 
am afraid, in that case," said Ayrton, " that if the mystery 
were once cleared up, the merit might be lost ;" and 
turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that 
while Lamb continued to admire these old crabbed 
authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. 
Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with 
a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, 
and whose meaning was often quite as uncomeatable, without 









Of Persons one would ivish to have seen. 281 

a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his 
contemporaries. The volume was produced ; and while 
some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and 
beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, Ayrton 
got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming " What have we 
here ?" read the following : 

" Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there — 
She gives the best light to his sphear, 
Or each is both, and all, and so 
They unto one another nothing owe." ■ 

There was no resisting this, till Lamb, seizing the 
volume, turned to the beautiful Lines to his Mistress, 2 dis- 
suading her from accompanying him abroad, and read them 
with suffused features and a faltering tongue : 

" By onr first strange and fatal interview, 
By all desires which thereof did ensue, 
By onr long starving hopes, by that remorse 
Which my words' masculine perswasive force 
Begot in thee, and by the memory 
Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatned me, 
I calmely beg. But by thy father's wrath, 
By all paines which want and divorcement hath, 
I conjure thee ; and all the oathes which I 
And thou have sworne to seale joynt constancy 
Here I unsweare, and overswear them thus — 
Thou shalt not love by wayes so dangerous. 
Temper, O fair love! love's impetuous rage, 
Be my true mistris still, not my faign'd Page ; 
I'll goe, and, by thy kinde leave, leave behinde 
Thee ! onely worthy to nurse in my minde. 
Thirst to come backe ; O, if thou die before, 
My soule, from other lands to thee shall soare. 
Thy (else almighty) beautie cannot move 
Bage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love. 
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshnesse ; thou hast reade 
How roughly bee in peeces shivered 

1 Epithalamion on Frederick, Count Palatina of the Bhyne and 
the Lady Elizabeth. 

2 Foolishly put among Funeral Elegies, forgetting the sense of 
Elegy. Davies's Nosce Teipsiim is so called. 



282 Of Persons one icould wish to have seen. 

Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. 
Fall ill or good, 'tis inadnesse to have prov'd 
Dangers unurg'd : Feed on this flattery, 
That absent lovers one in th' other be. 
Dissemble nothing, not a boy ; nor change 
Thy bodie's habite. nor minde ; be not strange 
To thyeselfe onely. All will spie in thy face 
A blushing, womanly, discovering grace. 
Kichly-cloath'd apes are call'd apes, and as soone 
Eclips'd as bright, we call the moone the moon. 
Men of France, changeable camelions, 
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions, 
Love's fuellers, and the lightest company 
Of players, which upon the world's stage be, 
"Will quickly know thee . . [seven lines left out]. 
O stay here ! for for thee 
England is onely a worthy gallerie, 
To walke in expectation ; till from thence 
Our greatest King call thee to his presence. 
When I am gone, dreame me some happinesse, 
Nor let thy lookes our long-hid love confesse, 
Nor praise, nor dispraise me ; nor blesse, nor curse 
Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse 
With midnight's star tings, crying out, Oh, oh, 
Nurse, oh, my love is slaine, I saw him goe 
O'er the white Alpes alone ; I saw him, I, aye, 
Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die. 
Au^ure me better chance, except dread Jove 
Thinke it enough for me to have had thy love." 

Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see 
from the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used 
to take his exercise ; and on his name being put to the 
vote, I was pleased to find that there was a general 
sensation in his favour in all but Ayr ton, who said some- 
thing about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected 
to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed at this 
superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its 
own trite level, and asked "if he did not think it would 
be worth while to scan the eye that had first greeted the 



li 



Of Persons one ivould ivish to have seen. 283 

literature; to see the head round which the visions of 
fancy must have played like gleams of inspiration or a 
sudden glory ; to watch those lips that " lisped in 
numbers, for the numbers came " — as by a miracle, or as 
if the dumb should speak ? Nor was it alone that he had 
been the first to tune his native tongue (however imper- 
fectly to modern ears) ; but he was himself a noble, 
manly character, standing before his age and striving to 
advance it ; a pleasant humourist withal, who has not 
only handed down to us the living manners of his time, 
but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, 
and would make as hearty a companion as mine Host of 
the Tabard. His interview with Petrarch is fraught with 
interest. Yet I would rather have seen Chaucer in 
company with the author of the Decameron, and have heard 
them exchange their best stories together — the Squire's 
Tale against the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's 
Prologue against the Adventures of Friar Albert. How 
fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then 
wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the 
world, and by the courtesies of genius! Surely, the 
thoughts and feelings which passed through the minds of 
these great revivers of learning, these Cadmuses who 
sowed the teeth of letters, must have stamped an ex- 
pression on their features as different from the moderns 
as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I 
continued, "is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, 
one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour 
in order to penetrate his spirit, and the only one of the 
Italian poets I should care much to see. There is a fine 
portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's ; light, 
Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same 
artist's large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only 
likeness of the kind that has the effect of conversing with 
'the mighty dead;' and this is truly spectral, ghastly, 
necromantic." Lamb put it to me if I should like to see 



284 Of Persons one ivould tvish to have seen. 

Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered, without 
hesitation, " No ; for that his beauties were ideal, vision- 
ary, not palpable or personal, and therefore connected 
with less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the 
essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb of 
fancy ; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve 
the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the 
mellifluous cadence of his verse ; no form but of a winged 
angel could vie with the airy shapes he has described. 
He was (to my apprehension) rather a ' creature of the 
element, that lived in the rainbow and played in the 
plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal. Or if he did 
appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one 
of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unques- 
tioned like a dream or sound — 

' That was Arion crown'd : 

So went he playing on the wat'ry plain.' " 

Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, 
and Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but 
the last was set aside as spurious, and the first made over 
to the New World. 

" I should like," said Mrs. Beynolds, " to have seen 
Pope talk with Patty Blount ; and I have seen Goldsmith." 
Every one turned round to look at Mrs. Eeynolds, as if 
by so doing they could get a sight at Goldsmith. 

" Where," asked a harsh, croaking voice, "was Dr. 
Johnson in the years 1745-6 ? He did not write anything 
that we know of, nor is there any account of him in 
Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland 
with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through 
the scenes in the Highlands in company with Boswell, 
many years after, * with lack-lustre eye,' yet as if they 
were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with 
interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an 
additional reason for my liking him ; and I would give 
something to have seen him seated in the tent with the 






Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 285 

youthful Majesty of Britain, and penning the Proclama- 
tion to all true subjects and adherents of the legitimate 
Government." 

" I thought," said Ayrton, turning short round upon 
Lamb, " that you of the Lake School did not like Pope ? " 
— " Not like Pope ! My dear sir, you must be under a 
mistake — I can read him over and over for ever!" — 
" Why, certainly, the Essay on Man must be allowed to 
be a masterpiece." — " It may be so, but I seldom look into 
it." — " Oh ! then it's his Satires you admire?" — " No, not 
his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his compliments." 
— " Compliments ! I did not know he ever made any." — 
" The finest," said Lamb, " that were ever paid by the wit 
of man. Each of them is worth an estate for life — nay, 
is an immortality. There is that superb one to Lord 
Cornbury : 

' Despise low joys, low gains ; 
Disdain whatever Oornbury disdains ; 
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' 

Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous 
praise ? And then that noble apotheosis of his friend 
Lord Mansfield (however little deserved), when, speaking 
of the Ho'ise of Lords, he adds : 

' Conspicuous scene ! another yet is nigh, 
(More silent far) where kings and poets lie; 
Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) 
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde ." 

And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses 
Lord Bolingbroke : 

1 Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, 
Oh ! all-accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine V 

Or turn," continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his 
cheek and his eye glistening, " to his list of early friends : 






' But why then publish ? Granville the polite, 
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write ; 



286 Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 

Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, 
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays : 
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, 
Ev'n mitred Kochester would nod the head ; 
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before) 
Received with open arms one poet more. 
Happy my studies, if by these approved ! 
Happier their author, if by these beloved ! 
From these the world will judge of men and books, 
Not from the Burnet s, Oldmixons, and Cooks.' " 

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the 
book, he said, "Do yon think I would not wish to have 
been friends with such a man as this ? " 

"What say you to Dryden?"— "He rather made a 
show of himself, and courted popularity in that lowest 
temple of fame, a coffee-shop, so as in some measure to 
vulgarise one's idea of him. Pope, on the contrary, 
reached the very beau ideal of what a poet's life should be ; 
and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation 
from that which was to circle his name after death. He 
was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have 
witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost 
the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward 
on this side of the tomb, who realised in friends, fortune, 
the esteem of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a 
youthful ambition, and who found that sort of patronage 
from the great during his lifetime which they would be 
thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. 
Eead Gay's verses to him on his supposed return from 
Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and 
say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that 
welcomed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall 
stairs." — " Still," said Mrs. Eeynolds, " I would rather 
have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in 
a coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu !" 

Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at 
the other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to 



Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 287 

ask if Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the 
dead. "Yes," said Lamb, "provided he would agree to 
lay aside his mask." 

We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding 

7 o 

was mentioned as a candidate ; only one, however, seconded 
the proposition. " Bichardson ?" — "By all means, but 
only to look at him through the glass door of his back 
shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most 
extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an 
author and his works) ; not to let him come behind his 
counter, lest he should want you to turn customer, or to 
go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the first 
manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, which was originally 
written in eight-and-twenty volumes octavo, or get out the 
letters of his female correspondents, to prove that Joseph 
Andrews was low." 

There was but one statesman in the whole of English 
history that any one expressed the least desire to see — 
Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, 
and wily policy; and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the 
immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed 
that if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, 

»and that each person would nod under his golden cloud, 
" nigh-sphered in heaven," a canopy as strange and stately 
as any in Homer. 

Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was 
received with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed 
by Barron Field. He presently superseded both Hogarth 
and Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on 
condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in 
the play and the farce, Lear and Wild air and Abel 

IDrugger. What a sight for sore eyes that would be ! Who 
would not part with a year's income at least, almost with 
a year of his natural life, to be present at it ? Besides, as 
he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory 



288 Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 

tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and 
Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my 
father speak as so great a favourite when he was young ! 
This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring 
of art ; and so much the more desirable, as such is the 
lurking scepticism mingled with our overstrained admira- 
tion of past excellence, that though we have the speeches 
of Burke, the portraits of Eeynolds, the writings of Gold- 
smith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what 
people could do at that period, and to confirm the uni- 
versal testimony to the merits of Garrick ; yet, as it was 
before our time, we have our misgivings, as if he was 
probably, after all, little better than a Bartlemy-fair actor, 
dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced 
cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and 
heard with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all 
accounts, if any one was ever moved by the true his- 
trionic cestus, it was Garrick. When he followed the 
Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most 
actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the 
whole way round, so fully was he possessed with the idea, 
or so anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. 

Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord 's, they 

suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was 
become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the 
convulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young 
negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstasy of 
delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the 
court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a 
seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party 
only two persons present had seen the British Koscius ; 
and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their 
acquaintance with their old favourite. 

We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of 
this fanciful speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who 
declared it was a shame to make all this rout about a 






Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 289 

mere player and farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion 
of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals 
of Shakspeare. Lamb said he had anticipated this objec- 
tion when he had named the author of Mustaplia and 
Alaliam ; and, out of caprice, insisted upon keeping him to 
represent the set, in preference to the wild, hair-brained 
enthusiast, Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann's, 
Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's- 
heads ; to Decker, who was but a garrulous proser ; to 
the voluminious Heywood ; and even to Beaumont and 
Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting the 
wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brooke, 
on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or, in Cowley's 
words, was " a vast species alone." Some one hinted at 
the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled 
Lamb, but he said a gliost would perhaps dispense with 
strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his title. 
Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some 
were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who 
was not present to defend himself. " If he grows dis- 
agreeable," it was whispered aloud, " there is Godwin can 
match him." At length, his romantic visit to Drummond 
of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in 
his favour. 

Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged 
that I would choose to mention ? And I answered, Eugene 
Aram. The name of the " Admirable Crichton " was 
suddenly started as a splendid example of icaste talents, so 
different from the generality of his countrymen. This 
choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, 
who declared himself descended from that prodigy of 
learning and accomplishment, and said he had family plate 
in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials 
A. C. — Admirable Chricton ! Hunt laughed, or rather 
roared, as heartily at this as I should think he has done 
for many years. 

u 



290 Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 

The last named Mitre-courtier 1 then wished to know 
whether there were any metaphysicians to whom one 
might be tempted to apply the wizard spell ? I replied, 
there were only six in modern times deserving the name 
— Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz ; 
and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts man. 2 
As to the French, who talked fluently of having created 
this science, there was not a tittle in any of their writings 
that was not to be found literally in the authors I had 
mentioned. [Home Tooke, who might have a claim to 
come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] 
None of these names seemed to excite much interest, and 
I did not plead for the re-appearance of those who might 
be thought best fitted by the abstracted nature of their 
studies for the present spiritual and disembodied state, 
and who, even while on this living stage, were nearly 
divested of common flesh and blood. As Ayrton, with an 
uneasy, fidgetty face, was about to put some question about 
Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by 

Martin Burney, who observed, " If J was here, he 

would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and 
redoubted socialists, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." 
I said this might be fair enough in him who had read, or 
fancied he had read, the original works, but I did not see 
how we could have any right to call up these authors to 
give an account of themselves in person, till we had looked 
into their writings. 

1 Lamb at this time occupied chambers in Mitre-court, Temple. 

2 Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know where he should 
come in. It is not easy to make room for him and his reputation 
together. This great and celebrated man in some of Lis works 
recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of a 
morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he some- 
times enriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine 
aromatic spirit of his genius. His Essays and his Advancement of 
Learning are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The 
last, though it contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart 
of the human intellect, and a guide to all future inquirers. 






Of Persons one would wish to have seen. 291 

By this time it should seem that some rumour of our 
whimsical deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed 
the irritable genus in their shadowy abodes, for we received 
messages from several candidates that we had just been 
thinking of. Gray declined our invitation, though he had 
not yet been asked : Gay offered to come, and bring in his 
hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly : Steele 
and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry 1 and Sir 
Koger de Coverley : Swift came in and sat down without 
speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly : Otway 
and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side 
of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to 
pay Charon his fare : Thomson fell asleep in the boat, 
and was rowed back again ; and Burns sent a low fellow, 
one John Barleycorn, an old companion of his, who had 
conducted him to the other world, to say that he had 
during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a 
show, only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would 
rather remain where he was. He desired, however, to 
shake hands by his representative — the hand, thus held 
out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously. 

The room was hung round with several portraits of 
eminent painters. While we were debating whether we 
should demand speech with these masters of mute elo- 
quence, whose features were so familiar to us, it seemed 
that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated 
themselves at some little distance from us. There was 
Leonardo, with his majestic beard and watchful eye, having 
a bust of Archimedes before him ; next him was Eaphael's 
graceful head turned round to the Fornarina ; and on his 
other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks ; 
Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on 
the table before him ; Correggio had an angel at his side ; 
Titian was seated with his mistress between himself and 
Giorgione ; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, 

1 A member of the Spectator Club. —Ed. 



292 Of Persons one ivould wish to have seen. 



. 



who took a dice-box from him ; Claude held a mirror in 
his hand ; Eubens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a 
satyr) on the head ; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, 
and Eembrandt was hid under firs, gold chains, and jewels, 
which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand so as to 
shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and as we 
rose to do them homage, they still presented the same 
surface to the view. Not being hond-fide representations 
of living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by 
signs and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into 
thin air, there was a loud noise at the outer door, and we 
found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio, who had 
been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see 
their illustrious successors — 

" Whose names on earth 
In Fame's eternal records live for aye !" 

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after 
them, and mournfully withdrew. " Egad !" said Lamb, 
"these are the very fellows I should like to have had 
some talk with, to know how they could see to paint when 
all was dark around them." 

" But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated 

G. J , "to the Legend of Good Women 1 "— " Name, 

name, Mr. J ," cried Hunt in a boisterous tone of 

friendly exultation, " name as many as you please, without 

reserve or fear of molestation!" J was perplexed 

between so many amiable recollections, that the name of 
the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of his 
pipe ; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of 
Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, 
than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the 
less solicitous on this subject of filling up the posthumous 
lists of Good Women, as there was already one in the 
room as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, 
us the best of them could be for their lives ! "I should 



Of Persons one would ivish to have seen. 293 

like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos," said that 
incomparable person ; and this immediately put us in 
mind that we had neglected to pay honour due to our 
friends on the other side of the Channel : Voltaire, the 
patriarch of levity, and Eousseau, the father of sentiment ; 
Montaigne and Babelais (great in wisdom and in wit) ; 
Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected 
round him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read 
his comedy of the Tartuffe at the house of Ninon ; Eacine, 
La Fontaine, Eochefoucalt, St. Evremont, &c. 

" There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, 
" I would rather see than all these — Don Quixote !" 

" Come, come !" said Hunt ; " I thought we should haVe 
no heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb ? 
Are you for eking out your shadowy list with such names 
as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis 
Khan?" — " Excuse me," said Lamb; " on the subject of 
characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the 
world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to 
reserve." — " No, no ! come, out with your worthies !" — 
" What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot ?" 
Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but 
cordial and full of smothered glee. " Your most exquisite 
reason !" was echoed on all sides ; and Ayrton thought 
that Lamb had now fairly entangled himself. "Why I 
cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, 
" that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering annual scarecrow 
of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give 
something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, sur- 
rounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, 
and expecting the moment that was to transport him to 
Paradise for his heroic self-devotion ; but if I say any 
more, there is that fellow Godwin will make something of 
it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different. I 
would fain see the face of him who, having dipped his 
hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could after- 



294 On Party Spirit. 

wards betray him. I have no conception of such a thing ; 
nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's 
very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it." — " You 
have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice." 
" Oh ! ever right, Menenius — ever right !" 
tC There is only one ether person I can ever think of 
after this," continued Lamb ; but without mentioning a 
name that once put on a semblance of -mortality. " If 
Shakspeare was to come into the room, we should all rise 
up to meet him ; but if that person was to come into it, 
we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his 
garment !" 

As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the 
turn the conversation had taken, we rose up to go. The 
morning broke with that dim, dubious light by which 
Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must have seen to paint 
their earliest works; and we parted to meet again and 
renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the 
night after that, till that night overspread Europe which 
saw no dawn. The same event, in truth, broke up our 
little Congress that broke up the great one. But that 
was to meet again : our deliberations have never been 
resumed. 



ESSAY III. 

On Party Spirit. 

Party spirit is one of the profoundnesses of Satan, or, in 
modern language, one of the dexterous equivoques and 
contrivances of our self-love, to prove that we, and those 
who agree with us, combine all that is excellent and 
praiseworthy in our own persons (as in a ring-fence), 
and that all the vices and deformity of human nature 
take refuge with those who differ from us. It is extending 
and fortifying the principle of the amour-propre, by calling 



On Party Spirit, 295 

to its aid the espirit de corps, and screening and surround- 
ing our favourite propensities and obstinate caprices in 
the hollow squares or dense phalanxes of sects and parties. 
This is a happy mode of pampering our self-complacency, 
and persuading ourselves that we, and those that side with 
us, are " the salt of the earth ;" of giving vent to the 
morbid humours of our pride, envy, hatred, malice, and all 
uncharitableness, those natural secretions of the human 
heart, under the pretext of self-defence, the public safety, 
or a voice from heaven, as it may happen ; and of heaping 
every excellence into one scale, and throwing all the 
obloquy and contempt into the other, in virtue of a nick- 
name, a watchword of party, a badge, the colour of a ribbon, 
the cut of a dress. We thus desolate the globe, or tear a 
country in pieces, to show that we are the only people fit 
to live in it; and fancy ourselves angels, while we are 
playing the devil. In this manner the Huron devours the 
Iroquois, because he is an Iroquois ; and the Iroquois the 
Huron, for a similar reason : neither suspects that he does 
it because he himself is a savage, and no better than a wild 
beast ; and is convinced in his own breast that the dif- 
ference of man and tribe makes a total difference in the 
case. The Papist persecutes the Protestant, the Protest- 
ant persecutes the Papist in his turn ; and each fancies 
that he has a plenary right to do so, while he keeps in 
view only the offensive epithet which " cuts the common 
link of brotherhood between them." The Church of 
England ill-treated the Dissenters, and the Dissenters, 
when they had the opportunity, did not spare the Church 
of England. The Whig calls the Tory a knave, the Tory 
compliments the Whig with the same title, and each thinks 
the abuse sticks to the party-name, and has nothing to do 
with himself or the generic name of man. On the contrary, 
it cuts both ways ; but while the Whigs say " The Troy 
is a knave, because he is a Tory," this is as much as to 
say, " I cannot be a knave, because I am a Whig ;" and by 



296 On Party Spirit. 

* 
exaggerating the profligacy of his opponent, he imagines 
he is laying the sure foundation, and raising the lofty 
superstructure, of his own praises. But if he says, which 
is the truth, " The Tory is not a rascal, because he is a 
Tory, but because human nature in power, and with the 
temptation, is a rascal," then this would imply that the 
seeds of depravity are sown in his own bosom, and might 
shoot out into full growth and luxuriance if he got into 
place, and this he does not wish to develop till he does 
get into place. 

We may be intolerant even in advocating the cause of 
toleration, and so bent on making proselytes to free- 
thinking as to allow no one to think freely but ourselves. 
The most boundless liberality in appearance may amount 
in reality to the most monstrous ostracism of opinion — not 
condemning this or that tenet, or standing up for this or 
that sect or party, but in a supercilious superiority to all 
sects and parties alike, and proscribing in one sweeping 
clause, all arts, sciences, opinions, and pursuits but our 
own. Till the time of Locke and Toland a general 
toleration was never dreamt of : it was thought right on 
all hands to punish and discountenance heretics and 
schismatics, but each party alternately claimed to be true 
Christians and Orthodox believers. Daniel De Foe, who 
spent his whole life, and wasted his strength, in asserting 
the right of the Dissenters to a Toleration (and got nothing 
for his pains but the pillory), was scandalised at the pro- 
posal of the general principle, and was equally strenuous 
in excluding Quakers, Anabaptists, Socinians, Sceptics, and 
all who did not agree in the essentials of Christianity — 
that is, who did not agree with him — from the benefit of 
such an indulgence to tender consciences. We wonder at 
the cruelties formerly practised upon the Jews : is there 
anything wonderful in it ? They were at that time the 
only people to make a butt and a bugbear of, to set up as 
a mark of indignity, and as a foil to our self-love, for the 



On Party Spirit. 297 

fercB natures principle that is within us, and always craving 
its prey to run down, to worry and make sport of at dis- 
cretion, and without mercy — the unvarying uniformity 
and implicit faith of the Catholic Church had imposed 
silence, and put a curb on our jarring dissensions, heart- 
burnings, and ill-blood, so that we had no pretence for 
quarrelling among ourselves for the glory of God or the 
salvation of men : — a Joed anus Bkuno, an Atheist or 
sorcerer, once in a way, would hardly suffice to stay the 
stomach of our theological rancour ; we therefore fell with 
might and main upon the Jews as a forlorn hope in this 
dearth of objects of spite or zeal ; or when the whole 
of Europe was reconciled to the bosom of holy Mother 
Church, went to the Holy Land in search of a difference 
of opinion, and a ground of mortal offence : but no sooner 
was there a division of the Christian World, than Papist, 
fell on Protestants or Schismatics, and Schismatics upon 
one another, with the same loving fury as they had before 
fallen upon Turks and Jews. The disposition is always 
there, like a muzzled mastiff ; the pretext only is wanting ; 
and this is furnished by a name, which, as soon as it is 
affixed to different sects or parties, gives us a licence, we 
think, to let loose upon them all our malevolence, domi- 
neering humour, love of power, and wanton mischief, as 
if they were of different species. The sentiment of the 
pious English Bishop was good, who, on seeing a criminal 
led to execution, exclaimed, " There goes my wicked 
self!" 

If we look at common patriotism, it will furnish an 
illustration of party spirit. One would think by an 
Englishman's hatred of the French, and his readiness to 
die fighting with and for his countrymen, that all the 
nation were united as one man, in heart and hand — and so 
they are in war-time and as an exercise of their loyalty 
and courage : but let the crisis be over, and they cool 
wonderfully; begin to feel the distinctions of English, 



298 On Party Spirit 

Irish, and Scotch ; fall out among themselves upon some 
minor distinction ; the same hand that was eager to shed 
the blood of a Frenchman, will not give a crust of bread 
or a cup of cold w T ater to a fellow countryman in distress ; 
and the heroes who defended the " wooden walls of old 
England" are left to expose their wounds and crippled 
limbs to gain a pittance from the passengers, or to perish 
of hunger, cold, and neglect, in our highways. Such is 
the effect of our boasted nationality : it is active, fierce 
in doing mischief; dormantly lukewarm in doing good. 
We may also see why the greatest stress is laid on trifles 
in religion, and why the most violent animosities arise out 
of the smallest differences, either in this or in politics. 

In the first place, it would never do to establish our 
superiority over others by the acquisition of greater 
virtues, or by discarding our vices ; but it is charming to 
do this by merely repeating a different formula of prayer, 
turning to the east instead of the west. He should fight 
boldly for such a distinction, who is persuaded it will 
furnish him a passport to the other world, and entitle him 
to look down on the rest of his fellows as given over to 
perdition. Secondly, we often hate those most with whom 
we have only a slight shade of difference, whether in 
politics or religion ; because as the whole is a contest for 
precedence and infallibility, we find it more difficult to 
draw the line of distinction where so many points are 
conceded, and are staggered in our conviction by the 
arguments of those whom we cannot despise as totally and 
incorrigibly in the wrong. The High Church party in 
Queen Anne's time were disposed to sacrifice the Low 
Church and Dissenters to the Papists, because they were 
more galled by their arguments and disconcerted with 
their pretensions. In private life the reverse of the 
foregoing holds good : that is, trades and professions 
present a direct contrast to sects and parties. A con- 
formity in sentiment strengthens our party and opinion § 



On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 299 

but those who have a similarity of pursuit, are rivals in 
interest ; and hence the old maxim, that two of a trade can 
never agree. 
1830. 



ESSAY IY. 

On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 

No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying 
of my brother's, 1 and a fine one. There is a feeling of 
Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. 
To be young is to be as one of the Immortals. One half 
of time indeed is spent — the other half remains in store 
for us with all its countless treasures, for there is no line 
drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We 
make the coming age our own — 

" The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." 

Death, old age, are words without a meaning, a dream, a 
fiction, with which we have nothing to do. Others may 
have undergone, or may still undergo them — we " bear a 
charmed life," which laughs to scorn all such idle fancies. 
As, in setting out on a delightful journey, we strain our 
eager sight forward, 

" Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail," 

and see no end to prospect after prospect, new objects 
presenting themselves as we advance, so in the outset of 
life we see no end to our desires nor to the opportunities 
of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, 
no disposition to flag, and it seems that we can go on so 
for ever. We look round in a new world, full of life anc 
motion, and ceaseless progress, and feel in ourselves all 
the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not 
1 John Hazlitt, the miniature painter. — Ed. 



300 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 

foresee from any present signs how we shall be left behind 
in the race, decline into old age, and drop into the grave. 
It is the simplicity and, as it were, abstractedness of our 
feelings in youth that (so to speak) identifies us with 
nature and (our experience being weak and our passions 
strong) makes us fancy ourselves immortal like it. Our 
short-lived connection with being, we fondly flatter our- 
selves, is an indissoluble and lasting union. As infants 
smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our desires, 
and hushed into fancied security by the roar of the uni- 
verse around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager thirst 
without draining it, and joy and hope seem ever mantling 
to the brim — objects press around us, filling the mind 
with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that 
wait upon them, so that there is no room for the thoughts 
of death. We are too much dazzled by the gorgeousness 
and novelty of the bright waking dream about us to dis- 
cern the dim shadow lingering for us in the distance. 
Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to 
detach our thoughts that way, even if we could. We are 
too much absorbed in present objects and pursuits. 
While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, ere "the 
wine of life is drunk," we are like people intoxicated or in 
a fever, who are hurried away by th.Q violence of their 
own sensations : it is only as present objects begin to pall 
upon the sense, as we have been disappointed in our 
favourite pursuits, cut off from our closest ties, that we by 
degrees become weaned from the world, that passion 
loosens its hold upon futurity, and that we begin to 
contemplate as in a glass darkly the possibility of parting 
with it for good. Till then, the example of others has no 
effect upon us. Casualties we avoid ; the slow approaches 
of age we play at hide and seek with. Like the foolish fat 
scullion in Sterne, who hears that Master Bobby is dead, 
our only reflection is, " So am not I !" The idea of death, 
instead of staggering our confidence, only seems to 

I 



On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 301 

strengthen and enhance our sense of the possession and 
enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves, 
or be mowed down by the scythe of Time like grass : these 
are but metaphors to the unreflecting, buoyant ears and 
overweening presumption of youth. It is not till we see 
the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy withering around us, 
that we give up the flattering delusions that before led us 
on, and that the emptiness and dreariness of the prospect 
before us reconciles us hypothetically to the silence of the 
grave. 

Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges are 
most mysterious. No wonder when it is first granted to 
us, that our gratitude, our admiration, and our delight 
should prevent us from reflecting on our own nothingness, 
or from thinking it will ever be recalled. Our first and 
strongest impressions are borrowed from the mighty scene 
that is opened to us, and we unconsciously transfer its 
durability as well as its splendour to ourselves. So newly 
found, we cannot think of parting with it yet, or at least 
put off that consideration sine die. Like a rustic at a fair, 
we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought 
of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know 
our existence only by ourselves, and confound our know- 
ledge with the objects of it. We and Nature are therefore 
one. Otherwise the illusion, the " feast of reason and the 
flow of soul," to which we are invited, is a mockery and a 
cruel insult. We do not go from a play till the last act 
is ended, and the lights are about to be extinguished. 
But the fairy face of Nature still shines on : shall we be 
called away before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce 
had a glimpse of what is going on? Like children, our 
step-mother Nature holds us up to see the raree-show of 
the universe, and then, as if we were a burden to her to 
support, lets us fall down again. Yet what brave sub- 
lunary things does not this pageant present, like a ball or 
fete of the universe ! 



302 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 

To see the golden sun, the azure sky, the out- stretched 
ocean ; to walk upon the green earth, and be lord of a 
thousand creatures ; to look down yawning precipices or 
over distant sunny vales; to see the world spread out 
under one's feet on a map ; to bring the stars near ; to 
view the smallest insects through a microscope; to read 
history, and consider the revolutions of empire and the 
successions of generations ; to hear of the glory of Tyre, 
of Sidon, of Babylon, and of Susa, and to say all these 
were before me and are now nothing ; to say I exist in 
such a point of time, and in such a point of space ; to be a 
spectator and a part of its ever-moving scene ; to witness 
the change of season, of spring and autumn, of winter and 
summer ; to feel hot and cold, pleasure and pain, beauty 
and deformity, right and wrong; to be sensible to the 
accidents of nature ; to consider the mighty world of eye 
and ear; to listen to the stock-dove's notes amid the 
forest deep ; to journey over moor and mountain ; to 
hear the midnight sainted choir ; to visit lighted halls, or 
the cathedral's gloom, or sit in crowded theatres and see 
life itself mocked ; to study the works of art and refine the 
sense of beauty to agony ; to worship fame, and to dream 
of immortality ; to look upon the Vatican, and to read 
Shakspeare ; to gather up the wisdom of the ancients, and 
to pry into the future ; to listen to the trump of war, the 
shout of victory ; to question history as to the movements 
of the human heart ; to seek for truth ; to plead the cause 
of humanity ; to overlook the world as if time and nature 
poured their treasures at our feet — to be and to do all this, 
and then in a moment to be nothing— to have it all snatched 
from us as by a juggler's trick, or a phantasmagoria ! There 
is something in this transition from all to nothing that 
shocks us and damps the enthusiasm of youth new flushed 
with hope and pleasure, and we cast the comfortless 
thought as far from us as we can. In the first enjoyment 
of the estate of life we discard the fear of debts and duns, 



On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth 303 

and never think of the final payment of our great debt to 
Nature. Art we know is long ; life, we flatter ourselves, 
should be so too. We see no end of the difficulties and 
delays we have to encounter : perfection is slow of attain- 
ment, and we must have time to accomplish it in. The 
fame of the great names we look up to is immortal : and 
shall not we who contemplate it imbibe a portion of 
ethereal fire, the divince jparticula aurce, which nothing can 
extinguish ? A wrinkle in Eembrandt or in Nature takes 
whole days to resolve itself into its component parts, its 
softenings and its sharpnesses; we refine upon our 
perfections, and unfold the intricacies of nature. What a 
prospect for the future ! What a task have we not begun ! 
And shall we be arrested in the middle of it ? We do not 
count our time thus employed lost, or our pains thrown 
away ; we do not flag or grow tired, but gain new vigour 
at our endless task. Shall Time, then, grudge us to finish 
what we have begun, and have formed a compact with 
Nature to do ? Why not fill up the blank that is left us in 
this manner ? I have looked for hours at a Eembrandt 
without being conscious of the flight of time, but with 
ever new wonder and delight, have thought that not only 
my own but another existence I could pass in the same 
manner. This rarefied, refined existence seemed to have 
no end, nor stint, nor principle of decay in it. The print 
would remain long after I who looked on it had become 
the prey of worms. The thing seems in itself out of all 
reason : health, strength, appetite are opposed to the idea 
of death, and we are not ready to credit it till we have 
found our illusions vanished, and our hopes grown cold. 
Objects in youth, from novelty, &c, are stamped upon 
the brain with such force and integrity that one thinks 
nothing can remove or obliterate them. They are riveted 
there, and appear to us as an element of our nature. It must 
be a mere violence that destroys them, not a natural decay. 
In the very strength of this persuasion we seem to enjoy an 



304 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, 

age by anticipation. We melt down years into a single 
moment of intense sympathy, and by anticipating the 
fruits defy the ravages of time. If, then, a single moment 
of our lives is worth years, shall we set any limits to 
its total value and extent ? Again, does it not happen 
that so secure do we think ourselves of an indefinite 
period of existence, that at times, when left to ourselves, 
and impatient of novelty, we feel annoyed at what seems 
to us the slow and creeping progress of time, and argue 
that if it always moves at this tedious snail's pace it will 
never come to an end ? How ready are we to sacrifice any 
space of time which separates us from a favourite object, 
little thinking that before long we shall find it move too 
fast. 

For my part, I started in life with the French Eevo- 
lution, and I have lived, alas ! to see the end of it. But I 
did not foresee this result. My sun arose with the first 
lawn of liberty, and I did not think how soon both must 
set. The new impulse to ardour given to men's minds 
imparted a congenial warmth and glow to mine ; we were 
strong to run a race together, and I little dreamed that 
Long before mine was set, the sun of liberty would turn to 
olood, or set once more in the night of despotism. Since 
then, I confess, I have no longer felt myself young, for 
with that my hopes fell. 

I have since turned my thoughts to gathering up some 
of the fragments of my early recollections, and putting 
fchem into a form to which I might occasionally revert. 
The future was barred to my progress, and I turned for 
consolation and encouragement to the past. It is thus 
that, while we find our personal and substantial identity 
vanishing from us, we strive to gain a reflected and 
vicarious one in our thoughts : we do not like to perish 
wholly, and wish to bequeath our names, at least, to pos- 
terity. As long as we can make our cherished thoughts 
and nearest interests live in the minds of others, we do 



On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, 305 

not appear to have retired altogether from the stage. We 
still occupy the breasts of others, and exert an influence 
and power over them, and it is only our bodies that are 
reduced to dust and powder. Our favourite speculations 
still find encouragement, and we make as great a figure in 
the eye of the world, or perhaps a greater, than in our life- 
time. The demands of our self-love are thus satisfied, 
and these are the most imperious and unremitting. 
Besides, if by our intellectual superiority we survive 
ourselves in this world, by our virtues and faith we may 
attain an interest in another, and a higher state of being, 
and may thus be recipients at the same time of men and 
of angels. 

M E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires." 

As we grow old, our sense of the value of time becomes 
vivid. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any. consequence. 
We can never cease wondering that that which has ever 
been should cease to be. We find many things remain the 
same : why then should there be change in us. This 
adds a convulsive grasp of whatever is, a sense of a falla- 
cious hollowness in all we see. Instead of the full, pulpy 
feeling of youth tasting existence and every object in it, 
all is flat and vapid, — a whited sepulchre, fair without 
but full of ravening and all uncleanness within. The 
world is a witch that puts us off with false shows and 
appearances. The simplicity of youth, the confiding 
expectation, the boundless raptures, are gone : we only 
think of getting out of it as well as we can, and without 
any great mischance or annoyance. The flush of illusion, 
even the complacent retrospect of past joys and hopes, is 
over : if we can slip out of life without indignity, can 
escape with little bodily infirmity, and frame our minds 
to the calm and respectable composure of still-life before 
we return to physical nothingness, it is as much as we can 

x 



306 On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth. 

expect. We do not die wholly at our deaths : we have 
mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after 
faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attach- 
ment disappear : we are torn from ourselves while living, 
year after year sees us no longer the same, and death only 
consigns the last fragment of what we were to the grave. 
That we should wear out by slow stages, and dwindle at 
last into nothing, is not wonderful, when even in our 
prime our strongest impressions leave little trace but for 
the moment, and we are the creatures of petty circumstance. 
How little effect is made on us in our best days by the 
books we have read, the scenes we have witnessed, the 
sensations we have gone through! Think only of the 
feelings we experience in reading a fine romance (one of 
Sir Walter's, for instance) ; what beauty, what sublimity, 
what interest, what heart-rending emotions ! You would 
suppose the feelings you then experienced would last for 
ever, or subdue the mind to their own harmony and tone : 
while we are reading it seems as if nothing could ever 
put us out of our way, or trouble us : — the first splash of 
mud that we get on entering the street, the first twopence 
we are cheated out of, the feeling vanishes clean out of 
our minds, and we become the prey of petty and annoying 
circumstance. The mind soars to the lofty : it is at home 
in the grovelling, the disagreeable, and the little. And 
yet we wonder that age should be feeble and querulous, 
— that the freshness of youth should fade away. Both 
worlds would hardly satisfy the extravagance of our 
desires and of our presumption. 






On Public Opinion. 307 



ESSAY Y. 

On Public Opinion. 

" Scared at the sound itself has made." 

Once asking a friend why he did not bring forward an 
explanation of a circumstance, in which his conduct had 
been called in question, he said, " His friends were 
satisfied on the subject, and he cared very little about the 
opinion of the world." I made answer that I did not 
consider this a good ground to rest his defence upon, for 
that a man's friends seldom thought better of him than 
the world did. I see no reason to alter this opinion. 
Our friends, indeed, are more apt than a mere stranger to 
join in with, or be silent under any imputation thrown out 
against us, because they are apprehensive they may be in- 
directly implicated in it, and they are bound to betray us 
to save their own credit. To judge of our jealousy, our 
sensibility, our high notions of responsibility, on this 
score, only consider if a single individual lets fall a 
solitary remark implying a doubt of the wit, the sense, 
the courage of a friend — how it staggers us — how it 
makes us shake with fear — how it makes us call up all 
our eloquence and airs of self-consequence in his defence, 
lest our partiality should be supposed to have blinded our 
perceptions, and we should be regarded as the dupes of a 
mistaken admiration. We already begin to meditate an 
escape from a losing cause, and try to find out some other 
fault in the character under discussion, to show that we 
are not behind-hand (if the truth must be spoken) in 
sagacity, and a sense of the ridiculous. If, then, this is 
the case with the first flaw, the first doubt, the first speck 
that dims the sun of friendship, so that we are ready to 
turn our backs on our sworn attachments and well-known 



o 



OS On Piiblic Opinion. 



professions the instant we have not all the world with us, 
what must it be when we have all the world against us ; 
when our friend, instead of a single stain, is covered with 
mud from head to foot ; how shall we expect our feeble 
voices not to be drowned in the general clamour ? how 
shall we dare to oppose our partial and mis-timed suf- 
frages to the just indignation of the public? Or if it 
should not amount to this, how shall we answer the silence 
and contempt with which his name is received. How 
shall we animate the great mass of indifference or distrust 
with our private enthusiasm ? how defeat the involuntary- 
smile, or the suppressed sneer, with the burst of generous 
feeling and the glow of honest conviction ? It is a thing 
not to be thought of. unless we would enter into a crusade 
against prejudice and malignity, devote ourselves as 
martyrs to friendship, raise a controversy in every 
company we go into, quarrel with every person we meet, 
and after making ourselves and every one else uncom- 
fortable, leave off, not by clearing our friend's reputation, 
but by involving our own pretensions to decency and 
common sense. People will not fail to observe that a 
man may have his reasons for his faults or vices ; but that 
for another to volunteer a defence of them, is without 
excuse. It is, in fact, an attempt to deprive them of the 
great and only benefit they derive from the supposed 
errors of their neighbours and contemporaries — the 
pleasure of backbiting and railing at them, w 7 hich they 
call seeing justice done. It is not a single breath of 
rumour or opinion ; but the whole atmosi>here is infected 
with a sort of aguish taint of anger and suspicion, that 
relaxes the nerves of fidelity, and makes our most san- 
guine resolutions sicken and turn pale ; and he who is 
proof against it, must either be armed with a love of truth, 
or a contempt for mankind, which places him out of the 
reach of ordinary rules and calculations. For myself, I 
do not shrink from defending a cause or a friend under a 



On Public Opinion. 309 

cloud ; though in neither case will cheap or common efforts 
suffice. But, in the first, you merely stand up for your 
own judgment and principles against fashion and prejudice, 
and thus assume a sort of manly and heroic attitude of 
defiance : in the last (which makes it a matter of greater 
nicety and nervous sensibility), you sneak behind another 
to throw your gauntlet at the whole world, and it requires 
a double stock of stoical firmness not to be laughed out of 
your boasted zeal and independence as a romantic and 
amiable weakness} 

There is nothing in which all the world agree but in 
running down some obnoxious individual. It may be 
supposed that this is not for nothing, and that they have 
good reasons for what they do. On the contrary, I will 
undertake to say, that so far from there being invariably 
just grounds for such an universal outcry, the universality 
of the outcry is often the only ground of the opinion ; and 
that it is purposely raised upon this principle, that all 
other proof or evidence against the person meant to be run 
down is wanting. Nay, further, it may happen, that while 
the clamour is at the loudest ; while you hear it from all 
quarters ; while it blows a perfect hurricane ; while " the 
world rings with the vain stir " — not one of those who are 
most eager in hearing and echoing knows what it is about, 
or is not fully persuaded that the charge is equally false, 
malicious, and absurd. It is like the wind, that " no man 
knoweth whence it cometh, or whither it goeth." It is vox 
et prceterea nihil. What, then, is it that gives it its confident 
circulation and its irresistible force ? It is the loudness of 
the organ with which it is pronounced, the stentorian lungs 

1 The only friends whom we defend with zeal and obstinacy are 
our relations. They seem part of ourselves. For our other friends 
we are only answerable, so long as we countenance them ; and 
therefore cut the connection as soon as possible. But who ever 
willingly gave up the good dispositions of a child, or the honour of 
a parent ? 



310 On Public Opinion. 

of the multitude ; the number of voices that take it up and 
repeat it, because others have done so ; the rapid flight and 
the impalpable nature of common fame, that makes it a 
desperate undertaking for any individual to inquire into or 
arrest the mischief that, in the deafening buzz or loosened 
roar of laughter or indignation, renders it impossible for 
the still small voice of reason to be heard, and leaves no 
other course to honesty or prudence than to fall flat on the 
face before it, as before the pestilential blast of the desert, 
and wait till it has passed over. Thus every one joins in 
asserting, propagating, and in outwardly approving what 
every one, in his private and unbiassed judgment, believes 
and knows to be scandalous and untrue. For every one in 
such circumstances keeps his own opinion to himself, and 
only attends to or acts upon that which he conceives to be 
the opinion of every one but himself. So that public 
opinion is not seldom a farce, equal to any acted upon the 
stage. Not only is it spurious and hollow in the way that 
Mr. Locke points out, by one man's taking up at second 
hand the opinion of another, but worse than this, one man 
takes up what he believes another ivill think, and which 
the latter professes only because he believes it held by the 
first ! All, therefore, that is necessary to control public 
opinion, is to gain possession of some organ loud and lofty 
enough to make yourself heard, that has power and interest 
on its side ; and then, no sooner do you blow a blast in 
this trump of ill-fame, like the horn hung up on an old 
castle-wall, than you are answered, echoed, and accredited 
on all sides : the gates are thrown open to receive you, 
and you are admitted into the very heart of the fortress 
of public opinion, and can assail from the ramparts with 
every engine of abuse, and with privileged impunity, all 
those who may come forward to vindicate the truth, or to 
rescue their good name from the unprincipled keeping of 
authority, servility, sophistry, and venal falsehood ! The 
only thing wanted is to give an alarm — to excite a panic 



On Public Opinion. 311 

in the public mind of being left in the lurch, and the rabble 
(whether in the ranks of literature or war) will throw away 
their arms, and surrender at discretion to any bully or 
impostor who, for a consideration, shall choose to try the 
experiment upon them ! 

What I have here described is the effect even upon 
the candid and well-disposed : what must it be to the 
malicious and idle, who are eager to believe all the ill they 
can hear of every one ; or to the prejudiced and interested, 
who are determined to credit all the ill they hear against 
those who are not of their own side ? To these last it is 
only requisite to be understood that the butt of ridicule or 
slander is of an opposite party, and they presently give 
you carte blanche to say what you please of him. Do they 
know that it is true ? No ; but they believe what all the 
world says, till they have evidence to the contrary. Do 
you prove that it is false ? They dare say, that if not 
that something worse remains behind ; and they retain 
the same opinion as before, for the honour of their party. 
They hire some one to pelt you with mud, and then affect 
to avoid you in the street as a dirty fellow. They are told 
that you have a hump on your back, and then wonder at 
your assurance or want of complaisance in walking into a 
room where they are, without it. Instead of apologising 
for the mistake, and, from finding one aspersion false, 
doubting all the rest, they are only the more confirmed in 
the remainder from being deprived of one handle against 
you, and resent their disappointment, instead of being 
ashamed of their credulity. People talk of the bigotry of 
the Catholics, and treat with contempt the absurd claim of 
the Popes to infallibility — I think with little right to do 
so. Walk into a church in Paris, you are struck with a 
number of idle forms and ceremonies, the chanting of the 
service in Latin, the shifting of the surplices, the sprink- 
ling of holy water, the painted windows " casting a dim 
religious light," the wax tapers, the pealing organ : the 



312 On Public Opinion. 

common people seem attentive and devout, and to put 
entire faith in all this — Why? Because they imagine 
others to do so ; they see and hear certain signs and sup- 
posed evidences of it, and it amuses and fills up the void 
of the mind, the love of the mysterious and wonderful, to 
lend their assent to it. They have assuredly, in general, 
no better reason — all our Protestant divines will tell you 
so. Well, step out of the church of St. Roche, and drop 
into an English reading-room hard by : what are you the 
better ? You see a dozen or score of your countrymen 
with their faces fixed, and their eyes glued to a newspaper, 
a magazine, a review — reading, swallowing, profoundly 
ruminating on the lie, the cant, the sophism of the day ! 
Why ? It saves them the trouble o{ thinking ; it gratifies 
their ill-humour, and keeps off ennui ! Does a gleam of 
doubt, an air of ridicule, or a glance of impatience pass 
across their features at the shallow and monstrous things 
they find ? No, it is all passive faith and dull security ; 
they cannot take their eyes from the page, they cannot live 
without it. They believe in their adopted oracle (you see 
it in their faces) as implicitly as in Sir John Barleycorn, 
as in a sirloin of beef, as in quarter-day — as they hope 
to receive their rents, or to see Old England again ! Are 
not the Popes, the Fathers, the Councils, as good as their 
oracles and champions ? They know the paper before 
them to be a hoax, but do they believe in the ribaldry, the 
calumny, the less on that account ? They believe the 
more in it, because it is got up solely and expressly to 
serve a cause that needs such support — and they swear by 
whatever is devoted to this object. 

The greater the profligacy, the effrontery, the servility, 
the greater the faith. Strange ! That the British public, 
whether at home or abroad, should shake their heads 
at the Lady of Loretto, and repose deliciously on Mr. 
Theodore Hook. It may well be thought that the 
enlightened part of the British public, persons of family 



On Public Opinion. 313 

and fortunes, who have had a college education, and 
received the benefit of foreign travel, see through the 
quackery, which they encourage for a political purpose, 
without being themselves the dupes of it. This scarcely 
mends the matter. Suppose an individual, of whom it has 
been repeatedly asserted that he has warts on his nose, 
were to enter the reading-room aforesaid, is there a single 
red-faced country squire who would not be surprised at 
not finding this story true, would not persuade himself fiye 
minutes after that he could not have seen correctly, or that 
some art had been used to conceal the defects, or would be 
led to doubt, from this instance, the general candour and 
veracity of his oracle ? He wxuld disbelieve his own senses 
rather. Seeing is believing, it is said : lying is believing 
I say. We do not even see with our own eyes, but must 
" wink and shut our apprehension up," that we may be 
able to agree to the report of others, as a piece of good 
manners and a point of established etiquette. Besides, the 
supposed deformity answered his wishes ; the abuse fed 
fat the ancient grudge he owed some presumptuous scrib- 
bler, for not agreeing in a number of points with his betters ; 
it gave him a personal advantage over a man he did not 
like — and who will give up what tends to strengthen his 
aversion for another? To Tory prejudice, dire as it 
is — to English imagination, morbid as it is, a nickname, 
a ludicrous epithet, a malignant falsehood, when it has 
been once propagated and taken to the bosom as a welcome 
consolation, becomes a precious property, a vested right; 
and people would as soon give up a sinecure, or a share in 
a close borough, as this sort of plenary indulgence to 
speak and think with contempt of those who would abolish 
the one, or throw open the other. Party-spirit is the best 
reason in the world for personal antipathy and vulgar 
abuse. 

" But, do you not think, Sir " (some dialectician may 
ask), " that belief is involuntary, and that we judge in all 



314 On Public Opinion. 

cases according to the precise degree of evidence and the 
positive facts before us ? " x 

No, Sir. 

" You believe, then, in the doctrine of philosophical free- 
will?" 

Indeed, Sir, I do not. 

" How then, Sir, am I to understand so unaccountable a 
diversity of opinion from the most approved writers on the 
philosophy of the human mind ? " 

May I ask, my dear Sir, did you ever read Mr. Words- 
worth's poem of Michael ? 

" I cannot charge my memory with the fact." 

Well, Sir, this Michael is an old shepherd, who has a 
son who goes to sea, and who turns out a great reprobate, 
by all the accounts received of him. Before he went, how- 
ever, the father took the boy with him into a mountain-glen, 
and made him lay the first stone of a sheep-fold, which 
was to be a covenant and a remembrance between them if 
anything ill happened. For years after, the old man used 
to go and work at the sheep-fold — 

" Anions: the rocks 
He went, and still look'd up upon the sun, 
And listen'd to the wind," 

and sat by the half-finished work, expecting the lad's re- 
turn, or hoping to hear some better tidings of him. Was 
this hope founded on reason — or was it not owing to the 
strength of affection, which in spite of everything could 
not relinquish its hold of a favourite object, indeed the 
only one that bound it to existence ? 

Not being able to make my dialectician answer kindly 
to interrogatories, I must get on without him. In 
matters of absolute demonstration and speculative in- 
differences, I grant, that belief is involuntary, and the 

1 See a paper in the Literary Remains, 1836, i. 81 et. seq., where 
this point is argued in greater detail. — Ed. 



On Public Opinion. 315 

proof not to be resisted ; but then, in such matters, there 
is no difference of opinion, or the difference is adjusted 
amicably and rationally. Hobbes is of opinion, that if 
their passions or interests could be implicated in the 
question, men would deny stoutly that the three angles of 
a right-angled triangle are equal to two right ones : and 
the disputes in religion look something like it. I only 
contend, however, that in all cases not of this peremptory 
and determinate cast, and where disputes commonly arise, 
inclination, habit, and example have a powerful share in 
throwing in the casting-weight to our opinions ; and that 
he who is only tolerably free from these, and not their 
regular dupe or slave, is indeed " a man of ten thousand." 
Take, for instance, the example of a Catholic clergyman 
in a Popish country : it will generally be found that he 
lives and dies in the faith in which he was brought up, as 
the Protestant clergyman does in his — shall we say that 
the necessity of gaining a livelihood, or the prospect of 
preferment, that the early bias given to his mind by 
education and study, the pride of victory, the shame of 
defeat, the example and encouragement of all about him, 
the respect and love of his flock, the flattering notice of 
the great, have no effect in giving consistency to his 
opinions and carrying them through to the last? Yet, 
who will suppose that in either case this apparent uni- 
formity is mere hypocrisy, or that the intellects of the 
two classes of divines are naturally adapted to the 
arguments in favour of the two religions they have 
occasion to profess ? No ; but the understanding takes 
a tincture from outward impulses and circumstances, and 
is led to dwell on those suggestions which favour, and to 
blind itself to the objections which impugn, the side to 
which it previously and morally inclines. Again, even 
in those who oppose established opinions, and form the 
little, firm, formidable phalanx of dissent, have not early 
instruction, spiritual pride, the love of contradiction, a 



316 On Public Opinion. 

resistance to usurped authority, as much to do with 
keeping up the war of sects and schisms as the abstract 
loye of truth or conviction of the understanding ? Does 
not persecution fan the flame in such fiery tempers, and 
does it not expire, or grow lukewarm, with indulgence 
and neglect? I have a sneaking kindness for a Popish 
priest in this country ; and to a Catholic peer I would 
willingly bow in passing. "What are national antipathies, 
individual attachments, but so many expressions of the 
moral principle in forming our opinions? All our 
opinions become grounds on which we act, and build our 
expectations of good or ill ; and this good or ill mixed up 
with them is soon changed into the ruling principle which 
modifies or violently supersedes the original cool deter- 
mination of the reason and senses. The will, when it 
once gets a footing, turns the sober judgment out of doors. 
If we form an attachment to any one, are we not slow in 
giving it up ? Or, if our suspicions are once excited, are 
we not equally rash and violent in beKeving the worst ? 
Othello characterises himself as one 

u That loved not wisely, but too well ; 



Of one not easily jealous — but, being wrought, 
Perplex' d in the extreme." 1 

And this answers to the movements and irregularities of 
passion and opinion which take place in human nature. 
If we wish a thing we are disposed to believe it : if we 
have been accustomed to believe it, we are the more 
obstinate in defending it on that account : if all the world 
differ from us in any question of moment, we are ashamed 
to own it ; or are hurried by peevishness and irritation 
into extravagance and paradox. The weight of example 
presses upon us (whether we feel it or not) like the law of 
gravitation. He who sustains his opinion by the strength 
of conviction and evidence alone, unmoved by ridicule, 
neglect, obloquy, or privation, shows no less resolution 
1 Othello, v. 2 [edit. 1868, vii. 469]. 






On Public Opinion. 317 

tlian the Hindoo who makes and keeps a vow to hold his 
right arm in the air till it grows rigid and callous. 

To have all the world against us is trying to a man's 
temper and philosophy. It unhinges even our opinion of 
our own motives and intentions. It is like striking the 
actual world from under our feet : the void that is left, 
the death-like pause, the chilling suspense, is fearful. 
The growth of an opinion is like the growth of a limb ; 
it receives its actual support and nourishment from the 
general body of the opinions, feelings, and practice of the 
world ; without that, it soon withers, festers, and becomes 
useless. To what purpose write a good book, if it is sure 
to be pronounced a bad one, even before it is read ? If 
our thoughts are to be blown stifling back upon ourselves, 
why utter them at all ? It is only exposing what we love 
most to contumely and insult, and thus depriving ourselves 
of our own relish and satisfaction in them. Language is 
only made to communicate our sentiments, and if we can 
find no one to receive them, we are reduced to the silence 
of dumbness, we live but in the solitude of a dungeon. 
If we do not vindicate our opinions, we seem poor creatures 
who have no right to them; if we speak out, we are 
involved in continual brawls and controversy. If we 
contemn what others admire, we make ourselves odious; 
if we admire what they despise, we are equally ridiculous. 
We have not the applause of the world nor the support of 
a party ; we can neither enjoy the freedom of social 
intercourse, nor the calm of privacy. With our respect 
for others, we lose confidence in ourselves : everything 
seems to be a subject of litigation — to want proof or 
confirmation ; we doubt, by degrees, whether we stand on 
our head or our heels — whether we know our right hand 
from our left. If I am assured that I never wrote a 
sentence of common English in my life, how can I know 
that this is not the case ? If I am told at one time that 
my writings are as heavy as lead, and at another, that 



318 On Public Opinion. 

they are more light and flimsy than the gossamer — what 
resource have I but to choose between the two ? I could 
say, if this were the place, what those writings are. — 
u Make it the place, and never stand upon punctilio !" 

They are not, then, so properly the works of an author 
by profession, as the thoughts of a metaphysician ex- 
pressed by a painter. They are subtle and difficult 
problems translated into hieroglyphics. I thought for 
several years on the hardest subjects, on Fate, Free Will, 
Foreknowledge absolute, without ever making use of words 
or images at all, and that has made them come in such 
throngs and confused heaps when I burst from that void 
of abstraction. In proportion to the tenuity to which my 
ideas had been drawn, and my abstinence from ornament 
and sensible objects, was the tenaciousness with which 
actual circumstances and picturesque imagery laid hold of 
my mind, when I turned my attention to them, or had to 
look round for illustrations. Till I began to paint, or 
till I became acquainted with the author of The Ancient 
Mariner, I could neither write nor speak. He encouraged 
me to write a book, which I did according to the original 
bent of my mind, making it as dry and meagre as I 
could, so that it fell still-born from the press, and none 
of those who abuse me for a shallow catch-penny writer 
have so much as heard of it. Yet, let me say, that work 
contains an important metaphysical discovery, supported 
by a continuous and severe train of reasoning, nearly as 
subtle and original as anything in Hume or Berkeley. I 
am not accustomed to speak of myself in this manner, 
but impudence may provoke modesty to justify itself. 
Finding this method did not answer, I desj)aired for a 
time; but some trifle I wrote in the Morning Chronicle 1 
meeting the approbation of the editor 2 and the town, I 

1 Probably the Illustrations of Vetus in 1813, written in answer 
to the Times. They are reprinted in Political Essays, 1819. — Ed. 

2 Mr. James Perry. — Ed. 






On Public Opinion. 319 

resolved to turn over a new leaf — to take the public at its 
word, to muster all the tropes and figures I could lay 
hands on, and, though I am a plain man, never to appear 
abroad but in an embroidered dress. Still, old habits will 
prevail; and I hardly ever set about a paragraph or a 
criticism, but there was an undercurrent of thought, or 
some generic distinction on which the whole turned. 
Having got my clue, I had no difficulty in stringing pearls 
upon it ; and the more recondite the point, the more I 
laboured to bring it out and set it off by a variety of 
ornaments and allusions. This puzzled the scribes whose 
business it was to crush me. They could not see the 
meaning : they would not see the colouring, for it hurt 
their eyes. One cried out, it was dull ; another, that it 
was too fine by half : my friends took up this last alter- 
native as the most favourable ; and since then it has been 
agreed that I am a florid writer, somewhat flighty and 
paradoxical. Yet, when I wished to unburthen my mind 
in the Edinburgh by an article on English metaphysics, 
the editor, who echoes this florid charge, said he preferred 
what I wrote for effect, and was afraid of its being thought 
heavy ! I have accounted for the flowers ; the paradoxes 
may be accounted for in the same way. All abstract 
reasoning is in extremes, or only takes up one view of 
a question, or what is called the principle of the thing ; 
and if you want to give this popularity and effect, you are 
in danger of running into extravagance and hyperbole. I 
have had to bring out some obscure distinction, or to 
combat some strong prejudice, and in doing this with all 
my might, may have often overshot the mark. It was 
easy to correct the excess of truth afterwards. I have 
been accused of inconsistency, for writing an essay, for 
instance, on the Advantages of Pedantry, 1 and another on 
the Ignorance of the Learned? as if ignorance had not its 

1 The essay On Pedantry occurs in the Bound Table, 1817, i, 27.— Ed 

2 Printed in Table Talk, 1821 [edit. 1870, p. 93 et seq].— Ed. 



320 On Personal Identity. 

comforts as well as knowledge. The personalities I have 
fallen into have never been gratuitous. If I have sacri- 
ficed my friends, it has always been to a theory. I have 
been found fault with for repeating myself, and for a 
narrow range of ideas. To a want of general reading, I 
plead guilty, and am sorry for it ; but perhaps if I had 
read more, I might have thought less. As to my barren- 
ness of invention, I have at least glanced over a number 
of subjects — painting, poetry, prose, plays, politics, par- 
liamentary speakers, metaphysical lore, books, men, and 
things. There is some point, some fancy, some feeling, 
some taste, shown in treating of these. Which of my 
conclusions has been reversed? Is it what I said ten 
years ago of the Bourbons which raised the war-whoop 
against me ? Surely all the world are of that opinion 
now. I have, then, given proofs of some talent, and of 
more honesty : if there is haste or want of method, there 
is no commonplace, nor a line that licks the dust ; and if 
I do not appear to more advantage, I at least appear such 
as I am. If the Editor of the Atlas will do me the favour 
to look over my Essay on the Principles of Human Action, 
will dip into any essay I ever wrote, and will take a 
sponge and clear the dust from the face of my Old Woman, 
I hope he will, upon second thoughts, acquit me of an 
absolute dearth of resources and want of versatility in the 
direction of my studies. 
1828. 



ESSAY VI. 

On Personal Identity. 
" Ha ! here's three of us are sophisticated." — Lear. 

" If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes ! " said 
the Macedonian hero ; and the cynic might have retorted 
the compliment upon the prince by saying, that, " were he 



On Personal Identity, 321 

not Diogenes, he would be Alexander!" This is the 
universal exception, the invariable reservation that our 
self-love makes, the utmost point at which our admiration 
or envy ever arrives — to wish, if we were not ourselves, to 
be some other individual. No one ever wishes to be 
another, instead of himself. "We may feel a desire to 
change places with others — to have one man's fortune — 
another's health or strength — his wit or learning, or 
accomplishments of various kinds — 

" Wishing to be like one more rick in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, 
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope ;" 

but we would still be ourselves, to possess and enjoy all 
these, or we would not give a doit for them. But, on this 
supposition, what in truth should we be the better for 
them ? It is not we, but another, that would reap the 
benefit ; and what do we care about that other ? In that 
case, the present owner might as well continue to enjoy 
them. We should not be gainers by the change. If the 
meanest beggar who crouches at a palace gate, and looks 
up with awe and suppliant fear to the proud inmate as he 
passes, could be put in possession of all the finery, the 
pomp, the luxury, and wealth that he sees and envies, on 
the sole condition of getting rid, together with his rags 
and misery, of all recollection that there ever was such a 
wretch as himself, he would reject the proffered boon 
with scorn. He might be glad to change situations ; but 
he would insist on keeping his own thoughts, to compare 
notes, and point the transition by the force of contrast. 
He would not, on any account, forego his self-congratu- 
lation on the unexpected accession of good fortune, and 
his escape from past suffering. All that excites his 
cupidity, his envy, his repining or despair, is the alter- 
native of some great good to himself; and if, in order to 
attain that object, he is to part with his own existence to 

Y 



322 On Personal Identity, 

take that of another, he can feel no farther interest in it. 
This is the language both of passion and reason. 

Here lies "the rub that makes calamity of so long 
life :" for it is not barely the apprehension of the ills that 
"in that sleep of death may come," but also our ignorance 
and indifference to the promised good, that produces our 
repugnance and backwardness to quit the present scene. 
No man, if he had his choice, would be the angel Gabriel 
to-morrow! What is the angel Gabriel to him but a 
splendid vision ? He might as well have an ambition to 
be turned into a bright cloud, or a particular star. The 
interpretation of which is, he can have no sympathy with 
the angel Gabriel. Before he can be transformed into so 
bright and ethereal an essence, he must necessarily " put 
off this mortal coil " — be divested of all his old habits, 
j>assions, thoughts, and feelings — to be endowed with 
other attributes, lofty and beatific, of which he has no 
notion; and, therefore, he would rather remain a little 
longer in this mansion of clay, which, with all its flaws, 
inconveniences, and perplexities, contains all that he has 
any real knowledge of, or any affection for. When, 
indeed, he is about to quit it in spite of himself, and has 
no other chance left to escape the darkness of the tomb, he 
may then have no objection (making a virtue of necessity) 
to put on angel's wings, to have radiant locks, to wear a 
wreath of amaranth, and thus to masquerade it in the 
skies. 

It is an instance of the truthful beauty of the ancient 
mythology, that the various transmutations it recounts are 
never voluntary, or of favourable omen, but are interposed 
as a timely release to those who, driven on by fate, and 
urged to the last extremity of fear or anguish, are turned 
into a flower, a plant, an animal, a star, a precious stone, 
or into some object that may inspire pity or mitigate our 
regret for their misfortunes. Narcissus was transformed 
into a flower; Daphne into a laurel; Arethusa into a 



On Personal Identity. 323 

fountain (by the favour of the gods) — but not till no other 
remedy was left for their despair. It is a sort of smiling 
cheat upon death, and graceful compromise with annihi- 
lation. It is better to exist by proxy, in some softened 
type and soothing allegory, than not at all — to breathe in 
a flower or shine in a constellation, than to be utterly 
forgot ; but no one would change his natural condition (if 
he could help it) for that of a bird, an insect, a beast, or 
a fish, however delightful their mode of existence, or 
however enviable he might deem their lot compared to his 
own. Their thoughts are not our thoughts — their happi- 
ness is not our happiness ; nor can we enter into it, except 
with a passing smile of approbation, or as a refinement of 
fancy. As the poet sings : 

<; What more felicity can fall to creature 

Than to enjoy delight with liberty, 
And to be lord of all the works of nature ? 

To reign in the air from earth to highest sky ; 
To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature ; 

To taste whatever thing doth please the eye ? — 
Who rests not pleased with such happiness, 
Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness !" 

This is gorgeous description and fine declamation : yet 
who would be found to act upon it, even in the forming of 
a wish ; or would not rather be the thrall of wretchedness, 
than launch out (by the aid of some magic spell) into all 
the delights of such a butterfly state of existence? The 
French (if any people can) may be said to enjoy this airy, 
heedless gaiety and unalloyed exuberance of satisfaction : 
yet what Englishman would deliberately change with 
them ? We would sooner be miserable after our own 
fashion than happy after theirs. It is not happiness, 
then, in the abstract, which we seek, that can be addressed 

as 

" That something still that prompts th' eternal sigh, 
For which we wish, to live or dare to die," 

but a happiness suited to our tastes and faculties — that 



324 On Personal Identity. 

• 

has become a part of ourselves, by habit and enjoyment — ■ 
that is endeared to us by a thousand recollections, priva- 
tions, and sufferings. No one, then, would willingly 
change his country or his kind for the most plausible 
pretences held out to him. The most humiliating punish- 
ment inflicted in ancient fable is the change of sex : not 
that it was any degradation in itself — but that it must 
occasion a total derangement of the moral economy and 
confusion of the sense of personal propriety. The thing 
is said to have happened au sens contraire, in our time. 
The story is to be met with in " very choice Italian ; " and 

Lord D tells it in very plain English ! 

We may often find ourselves envying the possessions of 
others, and sometimes inadvertently indulging a wish to 
change places with them altogether; but our self-love 
soon discover some excuse to be off the bargain we were 
ready to strike, and retracts "vows made in haste, as 
violent and void." We might make up our minds to the 
alteration in every other particular ; but, when it comes 
to the point, there is sure to be some trait or feature of 
character in the object of our admiration to which we 
cannot reconcile ourselves — some favourite quality or 
darling foible of our own. with which we can by no means 
resolve to part. The more enviable the situation of 
another, the more entirely to our taste, the more reluctant 
we are to leave any part of ourselves behind that would 
be so fully capable of appreciating all the exquisiteness of 
its new situation, or not to enter into the possession of 
such an imaginary reversion of good fortune with all our 
previous inclinations and sentiments. The outward cir- 
cumstances were fine : they only wanted a soul to enjoy 
them, and that soul is ours (as the costly ring wants the 
peerless jewel to perfect and set it off). The humble 
prayer and petition to sneak into visionary felicity by 
personal adoption, or the surrender of our own personal 
pretentions, always ends in a daring project of usurpation, 



On Personal Identity. 325 

and a determination to expel the actual proprietor, and 
supply his place so much more worthily with our own 
identity — not bating a single jot of it. Thus, in passing 
through a fine collection of pictures, who has not envied 
the privilege of visiting it every day, and wished to be the 
owner ? But the rising sigh is soon checked, and " the 
native hue of emulation is sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
of thought," when we come to ask ourselves, not merely 
whether the owner has any taste at all for these splendid 
works, and does not look upon them as so much expensive 
furniture, like his chairs and tables — but whether he has 
the same precise (and only true) taste that we have — 
whether he has the very same favourites that we have — 
whether he may not be so blind as to prefer a Vandyke to 
a Titian, a Euysdael to a Claude ; nay, whether he may 
not have other pursuits and avocations that draw off his 
attention from the sole objects of our idolatry, and which 
seem to us mere impertinences and waste of time? In 
that case, we at once lose all patience, and exclaim 
indignantly, " Give us back our taste, and keep your 
pictures!" It is not we who should envy them the 
possession of the treasure, but they who should envy us 
the true and exclusive enjoyment of it. A similar train 
of feeling seems to have dictated Warton's spirited Sonnet 
on visiting Wilton House : 

" From Pembroke's princely dome, where mimic art 
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers, 
Its living hues where the warm pencil ponrs, 
And breathing forms from the rude marble start, 
How to life's humbler scene can I depart ? 
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous towers, 
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours ? 
Vain the complaint ! For fancy can impart 
(To fate superior and to fortune's power) 
Whate'er adorns the stately storied-hall : 
She, mid the dungeon's solitary gloom, 
Can dress the Graces in their attic -pall-, 



326 On Personal Identity. 

Bid the green landscape's vernal beauty bloom ; 
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall.' 

One sometimes passes by a gentleman's park, an old 
family-seat, with its moss-grown, ruinous paling, its 
" glades mild-opening to the genial day," or embrowned 
with forest-trees. Here one would be glad to spend one's 
life, " shut up in measureless content," and to grow old 
beneath ancestral oaks, instead of gaining a precarious, 
irksome, and despised livelihood, by indulging romantic 
sentiments, and writing disjointed descriptions of them. 
The thought has scarcely risen to the lips, when we learn 
that the owner of so blissful a seclusion is a thorough- 
bred fox-hunter, a preserver of the game, a brawling 
electioneerer, a Tory member of parliament, a "No- 
Popery" man! — "I'd sooner be a dog, and bay the moon!" 
Who would be Sir Thomas Lethbridge for his title and 
estate? asks one man. But would not almost any one 
wish to be Sir Francis Burdett, the man of the people, 
the idol of the electors of Westminster ? says another. I 
can only answer for myself. Eespectable and honest as 
he is, there is something in his white boots, and white 
breeches, and white coat, and white hair, and white hat, 
and red face, that I cannot, by any effort of candour, 

confound my personal identity with! If Mr. can 

prevail on Sir Francis to exchange, let him do so by all 
means. Perhaps they might contrive to club a soul 
between them ! Could I have had my will, I should have 
been born a lord : but one would not be a booby lord 
neither. I am haunted by an odd fancy of driving down 
the Great North Eoad in a chaise and four, about fifty 
years ago, and coming to the inn at Ferry-bridge with 
outriders, white favours, and a coronet on the panels ; 
and then, too, I choose my companion in the coach. 
Really there is a witchcraft in all this that makes it 
necessary to turn away from it, lest, in the conflict 
between imagination and impossibility, I should grow 






On Personal Identity. 327 

feverish and light-headed! But, on the other hand, if 
one was a born lord, should one have the same idea (that 
every one else has) of a peeress in her own right ? Is not 
distance, giddy elevation, mysterious awe, an impassable 
gulf, necessary to form this idea in the mind, that fine 
ligament of "ethereal braid, sky- woven," that lets down 
heaven upon earth, fair as enchantment, soft as Berenice's 
hair, bright and garlanded like Ariadne's crown ; and is 
it not better to have had this idea all through life — to 
have caught but glimpses of it, to have known it but in a 
dream — than to have been born a lord ten times over, 
with twenty pampered menials at one's beck, and twenty 
descents to boast of ? It is the envy of certain privileges, 
the sharp privations we have undergone, the cutting 
neglect we have met with from the want of birth or title, 
that gives its zest to the distinction : the thing itself may 
be indifferent or contemptible enough. It is the becoming 
a lord that is to be desired ; but he who becomes a lord in 
reality may be an upstart — a mere pretender, without the 
sterling essence ; so that all that is of any worth in this 
supposed transition is purely imaginary and impossible. 1 
Kings are so accustomed to look down on all the rest of 
the world, that they consider the condition of mortality 
as vile and intolerable, if stripped of royal state, and cry 
out in the bitterness of their despair, " Give me a crown, 
or a tomb !" It should seem from this as if all mankind 
would change with the first crowned head that could 
propose the alternative, or that it would be only the 
presumption of the supposition, or a sense of their own 
un worthiness, that would deter them. Perhaps there is 

1 When Lord Byron was cut by the great, on account of his 
quarrel with his wife, he stood leaning on a marble slab at the 
entrance of a room, while troops of duchesses and countesses passed 
out. One little, pert, red-haired girl staid a few paces behind the 
rest ; and, as she passed him, said with a nod, " Aye, you should 
have married me, and then all this wouldn't have happened to 
you !" 



328 On Personal Identity. 

not a single throne that, if it was to be filled by this sort 
of voluntary metempsychosis, would not remain empty. 
Many would, no doubt, be glad to " monarchise, be feared, 
and kill with looks" in their own persons and after their 
own fashion : but who would be the double of those 
shadows of a shade— those " tenth transmitters of a foolish 
face" — Charles X. and Ferdinand VII.? If monarchs 
have little sympathy with mankind, mankind have even 
less with monarchs. They are merely to us a sort of 
state-puppets, or royal wax-work, which we may gaze at 
with superstitious wonder, but have no wish to become ; 
and he who should meditate such a change must not only 
feel by anticipation an utter contempt for the slough of 
humanity which he is prepared to cast, but must feel an 
absolute void and want of attraction in those lofty and 
incomprehensible sentiments which are to supply its 
place. With respect to actual royalty, the spell is in 
a great measure broken. But, among ancient monarchs, 
there is no one, I think, who envies Darius or Xerxes. 
One has a different feeling with respect to Alexander or 
Pyrrhus ; but this is because they were great men as well 
as great kings, and the soul is up in arms at the mention 
of their names as at the sound of a trumpet. But as to 
all the rest — those " in the catalogue who go for kings" — 
the praying, eating, drinking, dressing monarchs of the 
earth, in time past or present — one would as soon think of 
wishing to personate the Golden Calf, or to turn out with 
Nebuchadnezzar to graze, as to be transformed into one of 
that " swinish multitude." There is no point of affinity. 
The extrinsic circumstances are imposing ; but, within, 
there is nothing but morbid humours and proud flesh I 
Some persons might vote for Charlemagne ; and there are 
others who would have no objection to be the modern 
Charlemagne, with all he inflicted and suffered, even after 
the necromantic field of Waterloo, and the bloody wreath 
on the vacant brow of the conqueror, and that fell jailer, 



On Personal Identity. 329 

set over him by a craven foe, that " glared round his soul, 
and mocked his closing eyelids ! " 

It has been remarked, that could we at pleasure change 
our situation in life, more persons would be found anxious 
to descend than to ascend in the scale of society. One 
reason may be, that we have it more in our power to 
do so; and this encourages the thought, and makes it 
familiar to us. A second is, that we naturally wish to 
throw off the cares of state, of fortune or business, that 
oppress us, and to seek repose before we find it in the 
grave. A third reason is, that, as we descend to common 
life, the pleasures are simple, natural, such as all can 
enter into, and therefore excite a general interest, and 
combine all suffrages. Of the different occupations of 
life, none is beheld with a more pleasing emotion, or less 
aversion to a change for our own, than that of a shepherd 
tending his flock : the pastoral ages have been the envy 
and the theme of all succeeding ones ; and a beggar with 
his crutch is more closely allied than the monarch and 
his crown to the associations of mirth and heart' s-ease. 
On the other hand, it must be admitted that our pride is 
too apt to prefer grandeur to happiness ; and that our 
passions make us envy great vices oftener than great 
virtues. 

The world show their sense in nothing more than in a 
distrust and aversion to those changes of situation which 
only tend to make the successful candidates ridiculous, 
and which do not carry along with them a mind adequate 
to the circumstances. The common people, in this 
respect, are more shrewd and judicious than their supe- 
riors, from feeling their own awkwardness and incapacity, 
and often decline, with an instinctive modesty, the 
troublesome honours intended for them. They do not 
overlook their original defects so readily as others over- 
look their acquired advantages. It is not wonderful, there- 
fore, that opera-singers and dancers refuse or only con- 



330 On Personal Identity. 

descend as it were, to accept lords, though the latter are 
to often fascinated by them. The fair performer knows 
(better than her unsuspecting admirer) how little con- 
nection there is between the dazzling figure she makes on 
the stage and that which she may make in private life, 
and is in no hurry to convert " the drawing-room into a 
Green-room." The nobleman (supposing him not to be 
very wise) is astonished at the miraculous powers of art in 

" The fair, the chaste, the inexpressive she ;" 

and thinks such a paragon must easily conform to the 
routine of manners and society which every trifling woman 
of quality of his acquaintance, from sixteen to sixty, goes 
through without effort. This is a hasty or a wilful con- 
clusion. Things of habit only come by habit, and inspira- 
tion here avails nothing. A man of fortune who marries 
an actress for her fine performance of tragedy, has been 
well compared to the person who bought Punch. The 
lady is not unfrequently aware of the inconsequentiality, 
and unwilling to be put on the shelf, and hid in the 
nursery of some musty country mansion. Servant girls, 
of any sense and spirit, treat their masters (who make 
serious love to them) with suitable contempt. What is it 
but a proposal to drag an unmeaning trollop at his heels 
through life, to her own annoyance and the ridicule of all 
his friends? No woman, I suspect, ever forgave a man 
who raised her from a low condition in life (it is a per- 
petual obligation and reproach) ; though I believe, men 
often feel the most disinterested regard for women under 
such circumstances. Sancho Panza discovered no less 
folly in his eagerness to enter upon his new government, 
than wisdom in quitting it as fast as possible. Why will 
Mr. Cobbett persist in getting into Parliament? He 
would find himself no longer the same man. What 
member of Parliament, I should like to know, could write 
his Begister ? As a popular partisan, he may (for aught 



On Personal Identity. 331 

I can say) be a match for the whole Honourable House ; 
but, by obtaining a seat in St. Stephen's Chapel, he would 
only be equal to a 576th part of it. It was surely a 
puerile ambition in Mr. Addington to succeed Mr. Pitt as 
prime minister. The situation was only a foil to his 
imbecility. Gipsies have a fine faculty of evasion ; catch 
them who can in the same place or story twice! Take 
them ; teach them the comforts of civilisation ; confine 
them in warm rooms, with thick carpets and down beds ; 
and they will fly out of the window — like the bird, 
described by Chaucer, out of its golden cage. I maintain 
that there is no common language or medium of under- 
standing between people of education and without it — 
between those who judge of things from books or from 
their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over 
learning ; for it can make an appeal to you from what you 
know ; but you cannot react upon it through that which 
it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power. 
This is what foiled Buonaparte in Spain and Eussia. 
The people can only be gained over by informing them, 
though they may be enslaved by fraud or force. " What 
is it, then, he does like ? " — " Good victuals and drink ! " 
As if you had these not too ; but because he has them not, 
he thinks of nothing else, and laughs at you and your 
refinements, supposing you live upon air. To those who 
are deprived of every other advantage, even nature is a 
book sealed, I have made this capital mistake all my life, 
in imagining that those objects which lay open to all, and 
excised an interest merely from the idea of them, spoke a 
common language to all ; and that nature was a kind of 
universal home, where all ages, sexes, classes meet. Not 
so. The vital air, the sky, the woods, the streams — all 
these go for nothing, except with a favoured few. The 
poor are taken up with their bodily wants — the rich, with 
external acquisitions : the one, with the sense of property 
— the other, of its privation. Both have the same distaste 



332 On Personal Identity. 

for sentiment. The genteel are the slaves of appearances 
— the vulgar, of necessity ; and neither has the smallest 
regard to worth, refinement, generosity. All savages are 
irreclaimable. I can understand the Irish character 
better than the Scotch. I hate the formal crust of cir- 
cumstances and the mechanism of society. I have been 
recommended, indeed, to settle down into some respectable 
profession for life : 

44 Ah ! why so soon the blossom tear ?" 

I am " in no haste to be venerable ! " 

In thinking of those one might wish to have been, many 
people will exclaim, " Surely, you would like to have 
been Shakspeare ? " Would Garrick have consented to 
the change ? No, nor should he ; for the applause which 
he received, and on which he lived, was more adapted to 
his genius and taste. If Garrick had agreed to be Shak- 
speare, he would have made it a previous condition that 
he was to be a better player. He would have insisted 
on taking some higher part than Polonius or the Grave- 
digger. Ben Jonson and his companions at the Mermaid 
would not have known their old friend Will in his new 
disguise. The modern Koscius would have scouted the 
halting player. He would have shrunk from the parts of 
the inspired poet. If others are unlike us, we feel it as a 
presumption and an impertinence to usurp their place ; if 
they are like us, it seems a work of supererogation. We 
are not to be cozened out of our existence for nothing. It 
has been ingeniously urged, as an objection to having 
been Milton, that " then we should not have had the 
pleasure of reading Paradise Lost." Perhaps I should 
incline to draw lots with Pope, but that he was deformed, 
and did not sufficiently relish Milton and Shakspeare. 
As it is, we can enjoy his verses and theirs too. Why, 
having these, need we ever be dissatisfied with ourselves ? 
Goldsmith is a person whom I considerably affect not with- 



l 



On Personal Identity. 333 

standing his blunders and his misfortunes. The author 
of the Vicar of Wakefield, and of Retaliation, is one whose 
temper must have had something eminently amiable, 
delightful, gay, and happy in it. T 

" A certain tender bloom his fame o'erspreads." 

But then I could never make up my mind to his preferring 
Kowe and Dryden to the worthies of the Elizabethan age ; 
nor could I, in like manner, forgive Sir Joshua — whom I 
number among those whose existence was marked with a 
white stone, and on whose tomb might be inscribed " Thrice 
Fortunate ! " — his treating Nicholas Poussin with contempt. 
Differences in matters of taste and opinion are points of 
honour—" stuff o' the conscience " — stumbling-blocks not 
to be got over. Others, we easily grant, may have more 
wit, learning, imagination, riches, strength, beauty, which 
we should be glad to borrow of them ; but that they have 
sounder or better views of things, or that we should act 
wisely in changing in this respect, is what we can by no 
means persuade ourselves. We may not be the lucky 
possessors of what is best or most desirable; but our 
notion of what is best and most desirable we will give up 
to no man by choice or compulsion ; and unless others 
(the greatest wits or brightest geniuses) can come into our 
way of thinking, we must humbly beg leave to remain as 
we are. A Calvinistic preacher would not relinquish 
a single point of faith to be the Pope of Eome ; nor 
would a strict Unitarian acknowledge the mystery of 
the Holy Trinity to have painted Eaphael's Assembly 
of the Just. In the range of ideal excellence, we are 
distracted by variety and repelled by differences : the 
imagination is fickle and fastidious, and requires a 
combination of all possible qualifications, which never 
met. Habit alone is blind and tenacious of the most 
homely advantages ; and after running the tempting 
round of nature, fame and fortune we wrap ourselves 



334 On Personal Identity. 

up in our familiar recollections and huinble pretensions — 
as the lark, after long fluttering on sunny wing, sinks into 
its lowly bed ! 

We can have no very importunate craving, nor very great 
confidence, in wishing to change characters, except with 
those wrivh whom we are intimately acquainted by their 
works ; and having these by us (which is all we know or 
covet in them), what would we have more? We can 
have no more of a cat than her shin ; nor of an author than 
his brains. By becoming Shakspeare in reality we cut 
ourselves out of reading Milton, Pope, Dryden, and a 
thousand more — all of whom we have in our possession, 
enjoy, and are, by turns, in the best part of them, their 
thoughts, without any metamorphosis or miracle at all. 
What a microcosm is ours! What a Proteus is the 
human mind ! All that we know, think of, or can admire, 
in a manner becomes ourselves. We are not (the meanest 
of us) a volume, but a whole library ! In this calculation 
of problematical contingencies, the lapse of time makes no 
difference. One would as soon have been Eaphael as any 
modern artist. Twenty, thirty, or forty years of elegant 
enjoyment and lofty feeling were as great a luxury in the 
fifteenth as in the nineteenth century. But Eaphael did 
not live to see Claude, nor Titian Bembrandt. Those 
who found arts and sciences are not witnesses of their 
accumulated results and benefits ; nor, in general, do they 
reap the meed of praise which is their due. We who come 
after in some " laggard age," have more enjoyment of their 
fame than they had. Who would have missed the sight 
of the Louvre in all its glory to have been one of those 
whose works enriched it ? Would it not have been giving 
a certain good for an uncertain advantage ? No : I am as 
sure (if it is not presumption to say so) of what passed 
through Baphael's mind as of what passes through my 
own ; and I know the difference between seeing (though 
even that is a rare privilege) and producing such per- 






Mind and Motive. 335 

fection. At one time I was so devoted to Kenibranclt, 
that I think if the Prince of Darkness had made me the 
offer in some rash mood, I should have been tempted to 
close with it, and should have become (in happy hour, 
and in downright earnest) the great master of light and 
shade ! 

I have run myself out of my materials for this Essay, 
and want a well-turned sentence or two to conclude with ; 
like Benvenuto Cellini, who complains that, with all the 
brass, tin, iron, and lead he could muster in the house, 
his statue of Perseus was left imperfect, with a dent in 
the heel of it. Once more, then — I believe there is one 
character that all the world would like to change with — 
which is that of a favoured rival. Even hatred gives way 
to envy. We would be anything — a toad in a dungeon — 
to live upon her smile, which is our all of earthly hope 
and happiness ; nor can we, in our infatuation, conceive 
that there is any 'difference of feeling on the subject, or 
that the pressure of her hand is not in itself divine, 
making those to whom such bliss is deigned like the 
Immortal Gods! 

1828. 



ESSAY VII. 

Mind and Motive. 

" The web of our lives is of a mingled yarn." 

"Anthony Codrus Urceus, a most learned aud unfor- 
tunate Italian, born 1446, was a striking instance " (says 
his biographer) " of the miseries men bring upon them- 
selves by setting their affections unreasonably on trifles. 
This learned man lived at Forli, and had an apartment in 
the palace. His room was so very dark, that he was 
forced to use a candle in the day time; and one day, 
going abroad without putting it out, his library was set on 



336 Mind and Motive. 

fire, and some papers which he had prepared for the press 
were burned. The instant he was informed of this ill 
news, he was affected even to madness. He ran furiously 
to the palace, and, stopping at the door of his apartment, 
he cried aloud, ' Christ Jesus ! what mighty crime have I 
committed ? whom of your followers have I ever injured, 
that you thus rage with inexpiable hatred against me?' 
Then turning himself to an image of the Virgin Mary 
near at hand, ' Virgin' (says he) c hear what I have to say, 
for I speak in earnest, and with a composed spirit. If I 
shall happen to address you in my dying moments, I 
humbly entreat you not to hear me, nor receive me into 
heaven, for I am determined to spend all eternity in hell.' 
Those who heard these blasphemous expressions endea- 
voured to comfort him, but all to no purpose; for the 
society of mankind being no longer supportable to him, 
he left the city, and retired, like a savage, to the deep 
solitude of a wood. Some say that he was murdered 
there by ruffians ; others that he died at Bologna, in 1500, 
after much contrition and penitence." 

Almost every one may here read the history of his own 
life. There is scarcely a moment in which we are not in 
some degree guilty of the same kind of absurdity, which 
was here carried to such. a singular excess. We waste our 
regrets on what cannot be recalled, or fix our desires on 
what we know cannot be attained. Every hour is the 
slave of the last ; and we are seldom* masters either of 
our thoughts or of our actions. We are the creatures of 
imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or 
self-interest. Eousseau, in his Emilius, proposed to 
educate a perfectly reasonable man, who was to have 
passions and affections like other men, but with an ab- 
solute control over them. He was to love and to be wise. 
This is a contradiction in terms. Even in the common 
transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed 
by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of 









Mind and Motive. 337 

a tea-cup puts us out of temper for the day ; and a quarrel 
that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only 
with our lives. 

" Friends now fast sworn, 
Ona dissension of a doit, break out 
To bitterest enmity. So fellest foes, 
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep. 
To take the one the other, by some chance, 
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends, 
And interjoin their issues." 

We are little better than humoured children to the last, 
and play a mischievous game at cross purposes with our 
own happiness and that of others. 

We have given the above story as a striking contradic- 
tion to the prevailing doctrine of modern systems of 
morals and metaphysics, that man is purely a sensual and 
selfish animal, governed solely by a regard either to his 
immediate gratification or future interest. This doctrine 
we mean to oppose with all our might, whenever we meet 
with it. We are, however, less disposed to quarrel with 
it, as it is opposed to reason and philosophy, than as it 
interferes with common sense and observation. If the 
absurdity in question had been confined to the schools, 
we should not have gone out of our way to meddle with 
it : but it has gone abroad in the world, has crept into 
ladies' boudoirs, is entered in the commonplace book of 
beaux, is in the mouth of the learned and ignorant, and 
forms a part of popular opinion. It is perpetually applied 
as a false measure to the characters and conduct of men 
in the common affairs of the world, and it is therefore our 
business to rectify it, if we can. In fact, whoever sets out 
on the idea of reducing all our motives and actions to a 
simple principle, must either take a very narrow and 
superficial view of human nature, or make a very perverse 
use of his understanding in reasoning on what he sees. 
The frame of our minds, like that of his body, is exceed- 

z 



338 Mind and Motive. 

ingly complicated. Besides mere sensibility to pleasure 
and pain, there are other original independent principles, 
necessarily interwoven with the nature of man as an active 
and intelligent being, and which, blended together in 
different proportions, give their form and colour to our 
lives. Without some other essential faculties, such as 
will, imagination, &c, to give effect and direction to our 
physical sensibility, this faculty could be of no possible 
use or influence ; and with those other faculties joined to 
it, this pretended instinct of self-love will be subject to be 
everlastingly modified and controlled by those faculties, 
both in what regards our own good and that of others ; 
that is, must itself become in a great measure dependent 
on the very instruments it uses. The two most predomi- 
nant principles in the mind, besides sensibility and self- 
interest, are imagination and self-will, or (in general) the 
love of strong excitement, both in thought and action. To 
these sources may be traced the various passions, pursuits, 
habits, affections, follies and caprices, virtues and vices 
of mankind. We shall confine ourselves, in the present 
article, to give some account of the influence exercised by 
the imagination over the feelings. To an intellectual 
being, it cannot be altogether arbitrary what ideas it 
shall have, whether pleasurable or painful. Our ideas 
do not originate in our love of pleasure, and they cannot, 
therefore, depend absolutely upon it. They have another 
principle. If the imagination were " the servile slave " 
of our self-love, if our ideas were emanations of our 
sensitive nature, encouraged if agreeable, and excluded 
the instant they became otherwise, or encroached on the 
former principle, then there might be a tolerable pretence 
for the epicurean philosophy which is here spoken of. 
But for any such entire and mechanical subserviency of 
the operations of the one principle to the dictates of the 
other, there is not the slightest foundation in reality. 
The attention which the mind gives to its ideas is not 



Mind and Motive. 339 

always owing to the gratification derived from them, but 
to the strength and truth of the impressions them- 
selves, i. e., to their involuntary pow T er over the 
mind. This observation will account for a very general 
principle in the mind, which cannot, we conceive, be 
satisfactorily explained in any other way, we mean tlie 
power of fascination. Every one has heard the story 
of the girl who, being left alone by her companions, in 
order to frighten her, in a room with a dead body, 
at first attempted to get out, and shrieked violently 
for assistance, but finding herself shut in, ran and 
embraced the corpse, and was found senseless in its arms. 

It is said that in such cases there is a desperate effort 
made to get rid of the dread by converting it into the 
reality. There may be some truth in this account, but we 
do not think it contains the whole truth. The event pro- 
duced in the present instance does not bear out the con- 
clusion. The progress of the passion does not seem to have 
been that of diminishing or removing the terror by coming 
in contact with the object, but of carrying this terror to its 
height from an intense and irresistible impulse overcoming 
every other feeling. 

It is a well-known fact that few persons can stand 
safely on the edge of a precipice, or walk along the par- 
apet wail of a house, without being in danger of throw- 
ing themselves down ; not, we presume, from a principle 
of self-preservation ; but in consequence of a strong idea 
having taken possession of the mind from which it cannot 
well escape, which absorbs every other consideration, and 
confounds and overrules all self-regards. The impulse 
cannot in this case be resolved into a desire to remove the 
uneasiness of fear, for the only danger arises from the 
fear. We have been told by a person not at all given to 
exaggeration, that he once felt a strong propensity to 
throw himself into a cauldron of boiling lead, into which 
he was looking. These are what Shakspeare calls " the 



340 Mind and Motive. 

toys of desperation." People sometimes marry, and even 
fall in love on this principle — that is, through mere appre- 
hension, or what is called a fatality. In like manner, we 
find instances of persons who are, as it were, naturally 
delighted with whatever is disagreeable — who catch all 
sorts of unbecoming tones and gestures — who always say 
what they should not, and what they do not mean to say — 
in whom intemperance of imagination and incontinence of 
tongue are a disease, and who are governed by an almost 
infallible instinct of absurdity. 

The love of imitation has the same general source. We 
dispute for ever about Hogarth, and the question can never 
be decided according to the common ideas on the subject of 
taste. His pictures appeal to the love of truth, not to the 
sense of beauty : but the one is as much an essential 
principle of our nature as the other. They fill up the 
void of the mind ; they present an everlasting succession 
and variety of ideas. There is a fine observation some- 
where made by Aristotle, that the mind has a natural 
appetite of curiosity or desire to know ; and most of that 
knowledge which comes in by the eye, for this presents 
us with the greatest variety of differences. Hogarth is 
relished only by persons of a certain strength of mind 
and penetration into character ; for the subjects in them- 
selves are not pleasing, and this objection is only redeemed 
by the exercise and activity which they give to the under- 
standing. The great difference between what is meant 
by a severe and an effeminate taste or style, depends on 
the distinction here made. 

Our teasing ourselves to recollect the names of places 
or persons we have forgotten, the love of riddles and of 
abstruse philosophy, are all illustrations of the same 
general principle of curiosity, or the love of intellectual 
excitement. Again, our impatience to be delivered of a 
secret that we know ; the necessity which lovers have for 
confidants, auricular confession, and the declarations so 



Mind and Motive. 341 

commonly made by criminals of their guilt, are effects of 
the involuntary power exerted by the imagination over the 
feelings. Nothing can be more untrue, than that the 
whole course of our ideas, passions, and pursuits, is 
regulated by a regard to self-interest. Our attachment 
to certain objects is much oftener in proportion to the 
strength of the impression they make on us, to their 
power of riveting and fixing the attention, than to the 
gratification we derive from them. We are, perhaps, 
more apt to dwell upon circumstances that excite disgust 
and shock our feelings, than on those of an agreeable 
nature. This, at least, is the case where this disposition 
is particularly strong, as in people of nervous feelings 
and morbid habits of thinking. Thus the mind is often 
haunted with painful images and recollections, from the 
hold they have taken of the imagination. We cannot 
shake them off, though we strive to do it : nay, we even 
court their company ; we will not part with them out of 
our presence ; we strain our aching sight after them ; we 
anxiously recall every feature, and contemplate them in all 
their aggravated colours. There are a thousand passions 
and fancies that thwart our purposes and disturb our 
repose. Grief and fear are almost as welcome inmates of 
the breast as hope or joy, and more obstinately cherished. 
We return to the objects which have excited them, we 
brood over them, they become almost inseparable from 
the mind, necessary to it ; they assimilate all objects to 
the gloom of our own thoughts, and make the will a party 
against itself. This is one chief source of most of the 
passions that prey like vultures on the heart, and embitter 
human life. We hear moralists and divines perpetually 
exclaiming, with mingled indignation and surprise, at the 
folly of mankind in obstinately persisting in these tor- 
menting and violent passions, such as envy, revenge, 
sullenness, despair, &c. This is to them a mystery ; and 
it will always remain an inexplicable one, while the love 



342 Mind and Motive. 

of happiness is considered as the only spring of human 
conduct and desires. 1 

The love of power or action is another independent 
principle of the human mind, in the different degrees in 
which it exists, and which are not by any means in exact 
proportion to its physical sensibility. It seems evidently 
absurd to suppose that sensibility to pleasure or pain is 
the only principle of action. It is almost too obvious to 
remark, that sensibility alone, without an active principle 
in the mind, could never produce action. The soul might 
lie dissolved in pleasure, or be agonised with woe ; but 
the impulses of feeling, in order to excite passion, desire, 
or will, must be first communicated to some other faculty. 
There must be a principle, a fund of activity somewhere, 
by and through which our sensibility operates ; and that 
this active principle owes all its force, its precise degree 
of direction, to the sensitive faculty, is neither self-evident 
nor true. Strength of will is not always nor generally in 
proportion to strength of feeling. There are different 
degrees of activity, as of sensibility, in the mind ; and our 
passions, characters, and pursuits, often depend no less 
upon the one than on the other. We continually make a 
distinction in common discourse between sensibility and 
irritability between passion and feeling, between the nerv6S 
and muscles ; and we find that the most voluptuous 
people are in general the most indolent. Every one who 
has looked closely into human nature must have observed 
persons who are naturally and habitually restless in the 
extreme, but without any extraordinary susceptibility to 

1 As a contrast to the story at the beginning of this article, it 
will be not amiss to mention that of Sir Isaac Newton, on a some- 
what similar occasion. He had prepared some papers for the press 
with great care and study, but happening to leave a lighted candle 
on the table with them, his dog Diamond overturned the candle, 
and the labour of several years was destroyed. This great man, on 
seeing what was done, only shook his head, and said with a smile, 
" Ah, Diamond, you don't know what mischief you have done !'' 



Mind and Motive. 343 

pleasure or pain, always making or finding excuses to do 
something — whose actions constantly outrun the occasion, 
and who are eager in the pursuit of the greatest trifles — 
whose impatience of the smallest repose keeps them 
always employed about nothing — and whose whole lives are 
a continued work of supererogation. There are others, 
again, who seem born to act from a spirit of contradiction 
only, that is, who are ready to act not only without a 
reason, but against it — who are ever at cross-purposes 
with themselves and others — who are not satisfied unless 
they are doing two opposite things at a time — who 
contradict what you say, and if you assent to them, 
contradict what they have said — who regularly leave the 
pursuit in which they are successful to engage in some 
other in which they have no chance of success — who 
make a point of encountering difficulties and aiming at 
impossibilities, that there may be no end of theii ex- 
haustless task : while there is a third class whose vis 
inertim scarcely any motives can overcome — who are 
devoured by their feelings, and the slaves of their passions, 
but who can take no pains and use no means to gratify 
them — who, if roused to action by any unforseen accident, 
require a continued stimulus to urge them on — who 
fluctuate between desire and want of resolution — whoso 
brightest projects burst like a bubble as soon as formed— 
who yield to every obstacle — who almost sink under the 
weight of the atmosphere — who cannot brush aside a 
cobweb in their path, and are stopped by an insect's wing. 
Indolence is want of will — the absence or defect of the 
active principle — a repugnance to motion ; and whoever 
has been much tormented with this passion, must, we are 
sure, have felt that the inclination to indulge it is some- 
thing very distinct from the love of pleasure or actual 
enjoyment. Ambition is the reverse of indolence, and is 
the love of power or action in great things. Avarice, also, 
as it relates to the acquisition of riches, is, in a great 



344 Mind and Motive. 

measure, an active and enterprising feeling ; nor does the 
hoarding of wealth, after it is acquired, seem to have 
much connection with the love of pleasure. What is called 
niggardliness, very often, we are convinced from particular 
instances that we have known, arises less from a selfish 
principle than from a love of contrivance — from the study 
of economy as an art, for want of a better — from 
a pride in making the most of a little, and in not 
exceeding a certain expense previously determined upon ; 
all which is wilfulness, and is perfectly consistent, as it is 
frequently found united, with the utmost lavish expendi- 
ture and the utmost disregard for money on other occasions. 
A miser may, in general, be looked upon as a particular 
species of virtuoso. The constant desire in the rich to 
leave wealth in large masses, by aggrandising some branch 
of their families, or sometimes in such a manner as to 
accumulate for centuries, shows that the imagination has a 
considerable share in this passion. Intemperance, de- 
bauchery, gluttony, and other vices of that kind, may be 
attributed to an excess of sensuality or gross sensibility ; 
though, even here, we think it evident that habits of 
intoxication are produced quite as much by the strength 
as by the agreeableness of the excitement ; and with 
respect to some other vicious habits, curiosity makes 
many more votaries than inclination. The love of truth, 
when it predominates, produces inquisitive characters, the 
whole tribe of gossips, tale-bearers, harmless busy- 
bodies, your blunt honest creatures, who never conceal 
what they think and who are the more sure to tell it 
you the less you want to hear it — and now and then a 
philosopher. 

Our passions in general are to be traced more imme- 
diately to the active part of our nature, to the love of 
power, or to strength of will. Such are all those which 
arise out of the difficulty of accomplishment, which 
become more intense from the efforts made to attain the 



Mind and Motive. 345 

object, and which derive their strength from opposition. 
Mr. Hobbes says well on this subject : 

"But for an utmost end, in which the ancient philo- 
sophers placed felicity, and disputed much concerning the 
way thereto, there is no such thing in this world, nor way 
to it, more than to Utopia ; for while we live, we have 
desires, and desire presupposeth a further end. Seeing 
all delight is appetite, and desire of something further, 
there can be no contentment but in proceeding, and 
therefore we are not to marvel, when we see that as men 
attain to more riches, honour, or other power, so their 
appetite continually groweth more and more ; and when 
they are come to the utmost degree of some kind of power 
they pursue some other, as long as in any kind they think 
themselves behind any other. Of those, therefore, that 
have attained the highest degree of honour and riches, 
some have affected mastery in some art, as Nero in music 
and poetry, Commodus in the art of a gladiator; and such 
as affect not some such thing, must find diversion and 
recreation of their thoughts in the contention either of 
play or business, and men justly complain as of a great 
grief that they know not what to do. Felicity, there- 
fore, by which we mean continual delight, consists not in 
having prospered, but in prospering." 

This account of human nature, true as it is, would be a 
mere romance, if physical sensibility were the only faculty 
essential to man, that is, if we were the slaves of voluptuous 
indolence. But our desires are kindled by their own heat, 
the will is urged on by a restless impulse, and without 
action, enjoyment becomes insipid. The passions of men 
are not in proportion only to their sensibility, or to the 
desirableness of the object, but to the violence and 
irritability of their tempers, and the obstacles to their 
success. Thus an object to which we were almost indif- 
ferent while we thought it in our power, often excites the 
most ardent pursuit or the most painful regret, as soon as 



346 Mind and Motive. 

it is placed out of our reach. How eloquently is the con- 
tradiction between our desires and our success described in 
Don Quixote, where it is said of the lover, that " he courted 
a statue, hunted the wind, cried aloud to the desert !" 

The necessity of action to the mind, and the keen edge 
it gives to our desires, is shown in the different value we 
set on past and future objects. It is commonly, and we 
might almost say universally, supposed, that there is an 
essential difference in the two cases. In this instance, 
however, the strength of our passions has converted an 
evident absurdity into one of the most inveterate prejudices 
of the human mind. That the future is really or in itself 
of more consequence than the past, is what we can neither 
assent to nor even conceive. It is true, the past has 
ceased to be, and is no longer anything, except to the 
mind ; but the future is still to come, and has an existence 
in the mind only. The one is at an end, the other has 
not even had a beginning ; both are purely ideal : so that 
this argument would prove that the present only is of any 
real value, and that both past and future objects are 
equally indifferent, alike nothing. Indeed, the future is, 
if possible, more imaginary than the past ; for the past 
may in some sense be said to exist in its consequences ; it 
acts still ; it is present to us in its effects ; the mouldering 
ruins and broken fragments still remain; but of the future 
there is no trace. What a blank does the history of the 
world for the next six thousand years present to the mind, 
compared with that of the last ? All that strikes the 
imagination, or excites any interest in the mighty scene is 
'what lias been. Neither in reality, then, nor as a subject 
of general contemplation, has the future any advantage 
over the past ; but with respect to our own passions and 
pursuits it has. We regret the pleasures we have enjoyed, 
and eagerly anticipate those which are to come ; we dwell 
with satisfaction on the evils from which we have escaped, 
and dread future pain. The good that is past is like 



Mind and Motive. 347 

money that is spent, which is of no use, and about which 
we give no further concern. The good we expect is like 
a store yet untouched, in the enjoyment of which we 
promise ourselves infinite gratification. What has hap- 
pened to us we think of no consequence — what is to hap- 
pen to us, of the greatest. Why so ? Because the one is 
in our power, and the other not ; because the efforts of the 
will to bring an object to pass or to avert it, strengthen 
our attachment to or our aversion from that object ; 
because the habitual pursuit of any purpose redoubles the 
ardour of our pursuit, and converts the speculative and 
indolent interest we should otherwise take in it into real 
passion. Our regrets, anxiety, and wishes, are thrown 
away upon the past, but we encourage our disposition to 
exaggerate the importance of the future, as of the utmost 
use in aiding our resolutions and stimulating our exertions. 

It in some measure confirms this theory, that men attach 
more or less importance to past and future events, according 
as they are more or less engaged in action and the busy 
scenes of life. Those who have a fortune to make, or are in 
pursuit of rank and power, are regardless of the past, for it 
does not contribute to their views : those who have nothing 
to do but to think, take nearly the same interest in the 
past as in the future. The contemplation of the one is as 
delightful and real as of the other. The season of hope 
comes to an end, but the remembrance of it is left. The 
past still lives in the memory of those who have leisure to 
look back upon the way that they have trod, and can from it 
" catch glimpses that may make them less forlorn." The 
turbulence of action and uneasiness of desire must dwell 
upon the future ; it is only amidst the innoceuce of shep- 
herds, in the simplicity of the pastoral ages, that a tomb was 
found with this inscription — " I also was an Arcadian ! " 

We feel that some apology is necessary for having thus 
plunged our readers all at once into the middle of meta- 
physics. If it should be asked what use such studies are 






348 Mind and Motive. 

of, we might answer with Hume, perhaps of none, except 
that there are certain persons who find more entertainment in 
them than in any other. An account of this matter, with 
which we were amused ourselves, and which may therefore 
amuse others, we met with some time ago in a metaphysical 
allegory, which begins in this manner : 

" In the depth of a forest, in the kingdom of Indostan, 
lived a monkey, who, before his last step of transmigration, 
had occupied a human tenement. He had been a Bramin, 
skilful in theology, and in all abstruse learning. He was 
wont to hold in admiration the ways of nature, and de- 
lighted to penetrate the mysteries in which she was 
enrobed ; but in pursuing the footsteps of .philosophy, he 
wandered too far from the abode of the social Virtues. In 
order to pursue his studies, he had retired to a cave on the 
bauks of the Jumna. There he forgot society, and neglected 
ablution ; and therefore his soul was degraded to a con- 
dition below humanity. So inveterate were the habits 
which he had contracted in his human state, that his spirit 
was still influenced by his passion for abstruse study. He 
sojourned in this wood from youth to age, regardless of 
everything, save cocoa-nuts and metaphysics." For our own 
part, we should be content to pass our time much in the 
same manner as this learned savage, if we could only find 
a substitute for his cocoa-nuts ! We do not, however, wish 
to recommend the same pursuit to others, noi to dissuade 
them from it. It has its pleasures and its pains — its 
successes and its disappointments. It is neither quite so 
sublime nor quite so uninteresting as it is sometimes 
represented. The worst is, that much thought on difficult 
subjects tends, after a certain time, to destroy the natural 
gaiety and dancing of the spirits ; it deadens the elastic 
force of the mind, weighs upon the heart, and makes us 
insensible to the common enjoyments and pursuits of life. 

" Sithence no fairy lights, no quick'ning ray, 
Nor stir of pulse, nor objects to entice 



Mind and Motive. 349 

Abroad the spirits ; but the cloyster'd heart 
Sits squat at home, like pagod in a niche 
Obscure." 

Metaphysical reasoning is also one branch of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil. The study of man, how- 
ever, does, perhaps, less harm than a knowledge of the 
world, though it must be owned that the practical know- 
ledge of vice and misery makes a stronger impression on 
the mind, when it has imbibed a habit of abstract reason- 
ing. Evil thus becomes embodied in a general principle, 
and shows its harpy form in all things. It is a fatal, 
inevitable necessity hanging over us. It follows us 
wherever we go : if we fly into the uttermost parts of the 
earth, it is there : whether we turn to the right or the left, 
we cannot escape from it. This, it is true, is the disease of 
philosophy ; but it is one to which it is liable in minds of 
a certain cast, after the first ardour of expectation has been 
disabused by experience, and the finer feelings have 
received an irrecoverable shock from the jarring of the 
world. 

Happy are they who live in the dream of their own 
existence, and see all things in the light of their own 
minds ; who walk by faith and hope ; to whom the guiding 
star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom 
the spirit of the world has not entered ! They have not 
been " hurt by the archers," nor has the iron entered their 
souls. They live in the midst of arrows and of death, un- 
conscious of harm. The evil things come not nigh them. 
The shafts of ridicule pass unheeded by, and malice loses 
its sting. The example of vice does not rankle in their 
breasts, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Evil impres- 
sions fall off from them like drops of water. The yoke of 
life is to them light and supportable. The world has no 
hold on them. They are in it, not of it ; and a dream anci 
a glory is ever around them ! 

1815. 



350 On Means and Ends. 



ESSAY VIII. 

On Means and Ends. 

It is impossible to have things clone without doing them. 
This seems a truism ; and yet what is more common than 
to suppose that we shall find things done, merely by 
wishing it ? To put the will for the deed is as usual in 
practice as it is contrary to common sense. There is, in 
fact, no absurdity, no contradiction, of which the will is 
not capable. This is, I think, more remarkable in the 
English than in any other people, in whom (to judge by 
what I discover in myself ) the will bears great and 
disproportioned sway. We will a thing : we contemplate 
the end intensely, and think it done, neglecting the neces- 
sary means to accomplish it. The strong tendency of the 
mind towards it, the internal effort it makes to give being 
to the object of its idolatry, seems an adequate cause to 
produce the effect, and in a manner identified with it. 
This is more particularly the case in what relates to the 
fine arts, and will account for some phenomena of the 
national character. The English school is distinguished 
by what are called ebauches, rude, violent attempts at effect, 
and a total inattention fo the details or delicacy of finishing. 
Now this, I think, proceeds, not exactly from grossness of 
perception, but from the wilfulness of our character ; our 
desire to have things our own way, without any trouble or 
distraction of purpose. An object strikes us : we see and 
feel the whole effect. We wish to produce a likeness of it ; 
but we want to transfer this impression to the canvas as it 
is conveyed to us, simultaneously and intuitively, that is, 
to stamp it there at a blow, or otherwise we turn away with 
impatience and disgust, as if the means were an obstacle 
to the end, and every attention to the mechanical part of 
art were a deviation from our original purpose. We thus 






On Means and Ends. 351 

degenerate, after repeated failures, into a slovenly style of 
art; and that which was at first an undisciplined and 
irregular impulse becomes a habit, and then a theory. It 
seems strange that the love of the end should produce 
aversion to the means — but so it is ; neither is it altogether 
unnatural. That which we are struck with, which we are 
enamoured of, is the general appearance and result ; and 
it would certainly be most desirable to produce the effect 
in the same manner by a mere word or wish, if it were 
possible, without entering into any mechanical drudgery 
or minuteness of detail or dexterity of execution, which 
though they are essential and component parts of the work 
do not enter into our thoughts, and form no part of our 
contemplation. We may find it necessary, on a cool 
calculation to go through and learn these, but in so doing 
we only submit to necessity, and they are still a diversion 
to and a suspension of our purpose for the time, at least 
unless practice gives that facility which almost identifies 
the two together, or makes the process an unconscious one. 
The end thus devours up the means, or our eagerness for 
the one, where it is strong and unchecked, is in proportion 
to our impatience of the other. We view an object at a 
distance that excites an inclination to visit it, which we do 
after many tedious steps and intricate ways ; but if we 
could fly, we should never walk. The mind, however, has 
wings, though the body has not, and it is this that produces 
the contradiction in question. The first and strongest 
impulse of the mind is to produce any work at once and by 
the most energetic means ; but as this cannot always be 
done, we should not neglect other more mechanical ones, 
but that delusions of passion overrule the convictions of 
the understanding, and what we strongly wish we fancy 
to be possible and true. We are full of the effect we in- 
tend to produce, and imagine we have produced it, in spite 
of the evidence of our senses, and the suggestions of our 
friends. In fact, after a number of fruitless efforts and 



352 On Means and Ends. 

violent throes to produce an effect which wo passionately 
long for, it seems an injustice not to have produced it ; if 
we have not commanded success, we have done more, we 
have deserved it ; we have copied nature or Titian in the 
spirit in which they ought to be copied, and we see them 
before us in our mind's eye ; there is the look, the expres- 
sion, the something or other which we chiefly aim at, and 
thus we persist and make fifty excuses to deceive ourselves 
and confirm our errors ; or if the light breaks upon us 
through all the disguises of sophistry and self-love, it is 
so painful that we shut our eyes to it; the greater the 
mortification the more violent the effort to throw it off; 
and thus we stick to our determination, and end where we 
began. What makes me think that this is the process of 
our minds, and not merely rusticity or want of appre- 
hension, is, that you will see an English artist admiring 
and thrown into raptures by the tucker of Titian's mistress, 
made up of an infinite number of little folds, but if he 
attempts to copy it, he proceeds to omit all these details, 
and dash it off by a single smear of his brush. This is 
not ignorance, or even laziness, but what is called jump- 
ing at a conclusion. It is, in a word, an overweening 
purpose. He sees the details, the varieties, and their 
effects, and he admires them ; but he sees them with a glance 
of his eye, and as a wilful man must have his way, he 
would reproduce them by a single dash of the pencil. 
The mixing his colours, the putting in and out, the giv- 
ing his attention to a minute break, or softening in the 
particular lights and shades, is a mechanical and everlasting 
operation, very different from the delight he feels in con- 
templating the effect of all this when properly and finely 
done. Such details are foreign to his refined taste, and 
some doubts arise in his mind in the midst of his gratitude 
and his raptures, as to how Titian could resolve upon 
the drudgery of going through them, and whether it was 
not done by extreme facility of hand, and a sort of trick, 



On Means and Ends. 353 

abridging the mechanical labour. No one wrote or talked 
more enthusiastically about Titian's harmony of colouring 
than the late Mr. Barry, yet his own colouring was dead 
and dry ; and if he had copied a Titian, he would have 
make it a mere splash, leaving out all that caused his 
wonder or admiration, after his English, or rather Irish 
fashion. We not only grudge the labour of beginning, but 
we give up, for the same reason, when we are near touch- 
ing the goal of success ; and to save a few last touches, 
leave a work unfinished, and an object unattained. The 
immediate process, the daily gradual improvement, the 
completion of parts giving us no pleasure, we strain at the 
whole result ; we wish to have it done, and in our anxiety 
to have it off our hands, say it will do, and lose the benefit 
of all our labour by grudging a little pains, and not com- 
manding a little patience. In a day or two, suppose a 
copy of a fine Titian would be as complete as we could 
make it : the prospect of this so enchants us that we skip 
the intermediate days, see no great use in going on with it, 
fancy that we may spoil it, and in order to have the job 
done, take it home with us, when w r e immediately see our 
error, and spend the rest of our lives in repenting that we 
did not finish it properly at the time. We see the whole 
nature of a picture at once ; we only do a part : Hinc 
illce lachrymce. A French artist, on the contrary, has none 
of this uneasy, anxious feeling ; of this desire to grasp the 
whole of his subject, and anticipate his good fortune at a 
blow ; of this massing and concentrating principle. He 
takes the thing more easily and rationally. Suppose he 
undertakes to copy a picture, he looks at it and copies it 
bit by bit. He does not set off headlong without knowing 
where he is going, or plunge into all sorts of difficulties 
and absurdities, from impatience to begin and thinking that 
" no sooner said than done ;" but takes time to consider, 
lays his plans, gets in his outline and his distances, and 
lays a foundation before he attempts a superstructure 

2 A 



354 On Means and Ends. 

which lie may have to pull to pieces again. He looks 
before he leaps, which is contrary to the true blindfold 
English principle ; and I should think that we had in- 
vented this proverb from seeing so many fatal examples of 
the neglect of it. He does not make the picture all black 
or all white, because one part of it is so, and because he 
cannot alter an idea he has once got into his head, and 
must always run into extremes, but varies from green to 
red, from orange tawney to yellow, from grey to brown, 
according as they vary in the original : he sees no incon- 
sistency or forfeiture of a principle in this, but a great 
deal of right reason, and indeed an absolute necessity, if he 
wishes to succeed in what he is about. This is the last 
thing an Englishman thinks of : he only wants to have his 
own way, though it ends in defeat and ruin : he sets about 
a thing which he had little prospect of accomplishing, and 
if he finds he can do it, gives it over and leaves the matter 
short of success, which is too agreeable an idea for him to 
indulge in. The French artist proceeds bit by bit. He 
takes one part, a hand, a piece of drapery, a part of the 
back-ground, and finishes it carefully ; then another, and 
so on to the end. He does not, from a childish impatience, 
when he is near the conclusion, destroy the effect of the 
whole by leaving soma one part eminently defective, nor 
fly from what he is about to something else that catches 
his eye, neglecting the one and spoiling the other. He is 
constrained by mastery, by the mastery of common sense 
and pleasurable feeling. He is in no hurry to finish, for 
he has a satisfaction in the work, and touches and retouches, 
perhaps a single head, day after day and week after week, 
without repining, uneasiness, or apparent progress. The 
very lightness and indifference of his feelings renders him 
patient and laborious : an Englishman, whatever he is 
about or undertakes is as if he was carrying a heavy load 
that oppresses both his body and mind, and which he is 
anxious to throw down. A Frenchman's hopes or fears 



: 



On Means and Ends. 355 

are not excited to that pitch of intolerable agony that com- 
pels him, in mere compassion to himself to bring the 
question to a speedy issue, even to the loss of his object ; 
he is calm, easy, and indifferent, and can take his time and 
make the most of his advantages with impunity. Pleased 
with himself, he is pleased with whatever occupies his 
attention nearly alike. It is the same to him whether he 
paints an angel or a joint-stool ; it is the same to him 
whether it is landscape or history ; it is he who paints it, 
that is sufficient. Nothing puts him out of conceit with 
his work, for nothing puts him out of conceit with himself. 
This self-complacency produces admirable patience and 
docility in certain particulars, besides charity and tolera- 
tion towards others. I remember a ludicrous instance of 
this deliberate process, in a young French artist who was 
copying the Titian s Mistress, in the Louvre, some 
twenty years ago. x After getting it in chalk-lines, one 
would think he would have been attracted to the face, that 
heaven of beauty which makes a sunshine in the shady 
place, or to some part of the poetry of the picture ; instead 
of which he began to finish a square he had marked out 
in the right-hand corner of the picture. He set to work 
like a cabinet-maker or an engraver, and seemed to have 
no sympathy with the soul of the picture. Indeed, to a 
Frenchman there is no distinction between the great and 
little, the pleasurable and the painful ; the utmost he 
arrives at a conception of is the indifferent and the light. 
Another young man, at the time I speak of, was for eleven 
weeks (I think it was) daily employed in making a black- 
lead pencil drawing of a small Leonardo ; he sat cross- 
legged on a rail to do it, kept his hat on, rose up, went to 
the fire to warm himself, talked constantly of the excellence 
of the different masters — Titian for colour, Raphael for 
expression, Poussin for composition — all being alike to 
him, provided there was a word to express it, for all he 
1 When the author was studying at the Louvre in 1802. — En, 



356 On Means and Ends. 

thought about was his own harangue; and, having con- 
sulted some friend on his progress, he returned to 
' perfectionate,' as he called it, his copy. This would 
drive an Englishman mad or stupid. The perseverance 
and the indifference, the labour without impulse, the 
attention to the parts in succession, and disregard of the 
whole together, are to him absolutely inconceivable. A 
Frenchman only exists in his present sensations, and pro- 
vided he is left free to these as they arise, he cares about 
nothing farther, looking neither backward nor forward. 
With all this affectation and artifice, there is on this 
account a kind of simplicity and nature about them, after 
all. They lend themselves to the impression before them 
with good humour and good will, making it neither better 
nor worse than it is. The English overdo or underdo 
everything, and are either drunk or in despair. I do not 
speak of all Frenchmen or of ail Englishmen, but of the 
most characteristic specimens of each class. The extreme 
slowness and methodical regularity of the French has 
arisen out of this indifference, and even frivolity (their 
usually-supposed natural character), for owing to it their 
laborious minuteness costs them nothing ; they have no 
strong impulses or ardent longings that urge them to the 
violation of rules, or hurry them away with a subject and 
with the interest belonging to it. Everything is matter 
of calculation, and measured beforehand, in order to assist 
their fluttering and their feebleness. When they get be- 
yond the literal and the formal, and attempt the impressive 
and the grand, as in David's and Girardot's pictures, defend 
us from sublimity heaped on insipidity and petit ^maitreism ! 
You see a Frenchman in the Louvre copying the finest 
pictures, standing on one leg, with his hat on; or after 
copying a Raphael, thinking David much finer, more truly 
one of themselves, more a combination of the Greek 
sculptor and the French posture-master. Even if a French 
artist fails, he is not disconcerted; there is something 



On Means and Ends. 357 

else he excels in : if he cannot paint, he can dance ! If au 
Englishman, save the mark ! fails in anything, he thinks 
he can do nothing ; enraged at the mention of his ability 
to do anything else, and at any consolation offered to him, 
he banishes all other thought but of his disappointment, 
and discarding hope from his breast, neither eats nor sleeps 
(it is well if he does not cut his throat), will not attend to 
any other thing in which he before took an interest and 
pride, and is in despair till he recovers his good opinion 
of himself in the point in which he has been disgraced, 
though, from his very anxiety and disorder of mind, he is 
incapacitated from applying to the only means of doing so, 
as much as if he were drunk with liquor, instead of with 
pride and passion. The character I have here drawn of 
an Englishman I am clear about, for it is the character of 
myself, and, I am sorry to add, no exaggerated one. As 
my object is to paint the varieties of human nature, and as 
I can have it best from myself, I will confess a weakness. 
I lately tried to copy a Titian (after many years' want of 
practice), in order to give a friend in England some idea of 
the picture. I floundered on for several days, but failed, 
as might be expected. My sky became overcast. Every 
thing seemed of the colour of the paint I used. Nature 
was one great daub. I had no feeling left but a sense of 
want of power, and of an abortive struggle to do what I 
could not do. I was ashamed of being seen to look at the 
picture with admiration, as if I had no right to do so. I 
was ashamed even to have written or spoken about the 
picture or about art at all : it seemed a piece of pre- 
sumption or affectation in me, whose whole notions and 
refinements on the subject ended in an inexcusable daub. 
Why did I think of attempting such a thing heedlessly, of 
exposing my presumption and incapacity? It was blot- 
ting from my memory, covering with a dark veil, all that I 
remembered of those pictures formerly, my hopes when 
young, my regrets since ; it was wresting from me one of 



358 On Means and Ends. 

the consolations of my life and of my declining years. I 
was even afraid to walk out by the barrier of Neuilly, or 
to recall to memory that I had ever seen the picture ; all 
was turned to bitterness and gall : to feel anything but a 
sense of my own helplessness and absurdity seemed a 
want of sincerity, a mockery and a piece of injustice. 
The only comfort I had was in the excess of pain I felt ; 
this was at least some distinction : I was not insensible on 
that side. No Frenchman, I thought, would regret the not 
copying a Titian so much as I did, or so far show the same 
value for it. Besides, I had copied this identical picture 
very well formerly. If ever I got out of this scrape, I 
had received a lesson, at least, not to run the same risk of 
gratuitous vexation again, or even to attempt what was un- 
certain and unnecessary. 

It is the same in love and in literature. A man makes 
love without thinking of the chances of success, his own 
disabilities, or the character of his mistress; that is, 
without connecting means with ends, and consulting only 
his own will and passion. The author sets about writing 
history, with the full intention of rendering all documents, 
dates, and facts secondary to his own opinion and will. 
In business it is not altogether the same ; for interest 
acts obviously as a counterpoise to caprice and will, and 
is the moving principle ; nor is it so in war, for then the 
spirit of contradiction does everything, and an English- 
man will go to the devil rather than give up to any odds. 
Courage is pure will without regard to consequences, and 
this the English have in perfection. Again, poetry is our 
element, for the essence of poetry is will and passion. 
The French poetry is detail and verbiage. I have thus 
shown why the English fail, as a people, in the Fine Arts, 
namely, because with them the end absorbs the means. I 
have mentioned Barry as an individual instance. No man 
spoke or wrote with more gusto about painting, and yet no 
one painted with less. His pictures were dry and coarse, 






On Means and Ends. 359 

and wanted all that his description of those of others 
contained. For instance, he speaks of the dull, dead, 
v/atery look in the Medusa's head of Leonardo, which 
conveys a perfect idea of it : if he had copied it, you 
would never have suspected anything of the kind. Again, 
he has, I believe, somewhere spoken of the uneasy effect 
of the tucker of the Titian s Mistress, bursting with the 
full treasures it contains. What a daub he would have 
made of it ! He is like a person admiring the grace of a 
fine rope-dancer ; placed on the rope himself his head 
turns, and he falls : or like a man admiring fine horse- 
manship ; set him upon a horse, and he tumbles over on 
the other side. Why was this ? His mind was essentially 
ardent and discursive, not sensitive or observing; and 
though the immediate object acted as a stimulus to his 
imagination, it was only as it does to a poet's, that is, as a 
link in the chain of association, as suggesting other strong 
feelings and ideas, and not for its intrinsic beauty or 
hidden details. He had not the painter's eye though he 
had the painter's knowledge. There is as great a differ- 
ence in this respect as between the telescope and micro- 
scope. People in general see objects only to distinguish 
them in practice and by name ; to know that a hat is a 
hat, that a chair is not a table, that John is not William ; 
and there are painters (particularly of history) in England 
who look no farther. They cannot finish anything, or 
go over a head twice ; the first view is all they would 
arrive at ; nor can they reduce their impressions to their 
component parts without losing the spirit. The effect of 
this is grossness and want of force; for in reality the 
component parts cannot be separated from the whole. 
Such people have no pleasure in the exercise of their art 
as such : it is all to astonish or to get money that they 
follow it ; or if they are thrown out of it, they regret it 
only as a bankrupt does a business which was a livelihood 
to him. Barry did not live, like Titian, in the taste of 



360 Matter and Manner. 

colours ; they were not a pabulum to his sense ; lie did 
not hold green, blue, red, and yellow as the precious 
darlings of his eye. They did not therefore sink into his 
mind, or nourish and enrich it with the sense of beauty, 
though he knew enough of them to furnish hints and 
topics of discourse. If he had had the most beautiful 
object in nature before him in his painting-room in the 
Adelphi, he would have neglected it, after a moment's 
burst of admiration, to talk of his last composition, or to 
scrawl some new and vast design. Art was nothing to 
him, or if anything, merely a stalking-horse to his 
ambition and display of intellectual power in general ; and 
therefore he neglected it to daub huge allegories, or cabal 
with the Academy, where the violence of his will or the 
extent of his views found ample scope. As a painter he 
was valuable merely as a draughtsman, in that part of the 
art which may be reduced to lines and precepts, or positive 
measurement. There is neither colour, nor expression, 
nor delicacy, nor beauty, in his works. 
1827. 



ESSAY IX. 

Matter and Manner. 

Nothing can frequently be more striking than the 
difference of style or manner, where the matter remains 
the same, as in paraphrases and translations. The most 
remarkable example which occurs to us is in the begin- 
ning of the Flower and Leaf, by Chaucer, 1 and in the 
modernisation of the same passage by Dryden. We shall 
give an extract from both, that the reader may judge for 
himself. The original runs thus : 

" And I that all this pleasaunt sight ay sie, 
Thought sodainly I felte so sweet an aire 



1 Morris's edit, of Chancer. The extract has now been given 






Matter and Manner. 361 

Con of the eglentere, that certainely 
There is no heart, I deme, in such dispaire, 
Ne with no thoughtes fro ward and contraire 
So overlaid, but it shoulde soone have bote, 
If it had ones felt this savour sote. 

And as I stood and cast aside mine eie, 

I was of ware the fairest niedler tree, 

That ever yet in all my life I sie, 

As full of blossomes as it mighte be; 

Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile 

Fro bough to bough ; and, as him list, gan eete 

Of buddes here and there and floures sweete. 

And to the herber side tlier was joyninge 
This faire tree, of wtiich I have you told; 
And at the last the brid began to singe, 
When he had eaten what he eate wolde, 
So passing sweetly, that by manifolde, 
It was more pleasaunt than I coude devise. 
And when his song was ended in this wise, 

The nightingale with so mery a note 

Answered him, that all the woode rong 

So sodainly, that, as it were a sote. 

I stood astonied ; so was I with the song 

Thorow ravished, that till late and longe, 

Ne wist I in what place I was, ne where; 

And ay, me thoughts, she song even by mine ere. 

Wherefore about I waited busily, 
On every side, if that I her mighte see; 
And, at the last, I gan full well aspie 
Where she sat in a fresh grene laurer tree, 
On the further side, even right by me, 
That gave so passing a delicious smell, 
According to the eglentere full well. 

Whereof I hadde so inly great pleasure, 
That, as me thought, I surely ravished was 
Into Paradice, where as my desire 
Was for to be, and no ferther to passe 



from that source. The Flower and Leaf is now believed not to be 
Chaucer's. — Ed. 



862 Matter and Manner. 



As for that day; and on the sote grasse 
I sat me downe; for, as for mine entent, 
The birddes song was more convenient. 



And more pleas aunt to me by many fold, 
Than meat or drinke, or any other thing. 
Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold, 
The wholesome savours eke so comforting, 
That, as I demede, sith the beginning 
Of Unlike world was never seene or than 
So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man. 

And as I sat, the birddes barkening thus, 
Me thoughte that I hearde voices sodainly, 
The most sweetest and most delicious 
That ever any wight, I trow truly, 
Heard in here life; for sothe the armony 
And sweet accord was in so good musike, 
That the voices to angels most was like." 

In this passage the poet has let loose the very soul of 
pleasure. There is a spirit of enjoyment in it, of which 
there seems no end. It is the intense delight which 
accompanies the description of every object, the fund of 
natural sensibility it displays, which constitutes its whole 
essence and beauty. Now this is shown chiefly in the 
manner in which the different objects are anticipated, and 
the eager welcome which is given to them ; in his re- 
peating and varying the circumstances with a restless 
delight ; in his quitting the subject for a moment, and 
then returning to it again, as if he could never have his 
fill of enjoyment. There is little of this in Dryden's 
paraphrase. The same ideas are introduced, but not in 
the same manner, nor with the same spirit. The imagi- 
nation of the poet is not borne along with the tide of 
pleasure — the verse is not poured out, like the natural 
strains it describes, from pure delight, but according to 
rule and measure. Instead of being absorbed in his 
subject, he is dissatisfied with it, tries to give an air of 
dignity to it by factitious ornaments, to amuse the reader 



Matter and Manner. 363 

by ingenious allusions, and divert his attention from the 
progress of the story by the artifices of the style : 

" The painted birds, companions of the spring, 
Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing. 
Both eyes and ears receiv'd a like delight, 
Enchanting music, and a charming sight. 
On Philomel I fix'd my whole desire ; 
And listen'd for the queen of all the quire ; 
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing; 
And wanted yet an omen to the spring. 

Thus as I mus'd I cast aside my eye, 
And saw a medlar-tree was planted nigh. 
The spreading branches made a goodly show, 
And full of opening blooms was every bough: 
A goldfinch there I saw with gawdy pride 
Of painted plumes, that hopp'd from side to side, 
Still pecking as she pass'd; and still she drew 
The sweets from every flower and suck'd the dew : 
Suffic'd at length, she warbled in her throat, 
And tun'd her voice to many a merry note, 
But indistinct, and neither sweet nor clear, 
Yet such as sooth' d my soul, and pleas'd my ear. 

Her short performance was no sooner tried, 
When she I sought, the nightingale, replied : 
So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung, 
That the grove echoed, and the valleys rung: 
And I so ravish'd with her heavenly note, 
I stood entranced, and had no room for thought. 
But all o'erpower'd with ectasy of bliss, 
Was in a pleasing dream of paradise ; 
At length I wak'd, and looking round the bower, 
SearchM every tree* and pry'd on every flower, 
If any where by chance I might espy 
The rural poet of the melody : 
For still methought she sung not far away: 
At last I found her on a laurel spray. 
Close by my side she sat, and fair in sight, 
Full in a line, against her opposite ; 
Where stood with eglantine the laurel twin'd; 
And both their native sweets were well conjoin'd. 

On the green bank I sat, and listen'd long; 
(Sitting was more convenient for the song;) 



364 Matter and Manner. 

Nor till her lay was ended could I move, 
But wish'd to dwell for ever in the grove. 
Only methought the time too swiftly pass'd, 
And every note I fear'd would be the last. 
My sight, and smell and hearing were employ'd, 
And all three senses in full gust enjoy'd. 
And what alone did all the rest surpass 
The sweet possession of the fairy place ; 
Single, and conscious to myself alone 
Of pleasures to the excluded world unknown: 
Pleasures which no where else were to be found, 
And all Elysium in a spot of ground. 

Thus while I sat intent to see and hear, 
And drew perfumes of more than vital air, 
All suddenly I heard the approaching sound 
Of vocal music on the enchanted ground: 
A host of saints it seeni'd, so full the quire ; 
As if the bless'd above did all conspire 
To join their voices, and neglect the lyre." 

Compared with Chaucer, Dry den and the rest of that 
school were merely verbal poets. They had a great deal of 
wit, sense, and fancy ; they only wanted truth and depth 
of feeling. But I shall have to say more on this subject, 
when I come to consider the old question which I have 
got marked down in my list, whether Pope was a Poet. 

Lord Chesterfield's character of the Duke of Marl- 
borough is a good illustration of his general theory. 
He says, " Of all the men I ever knew in my life (and I 
knew him extremely well) the late Duke of Marlborough 
possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say 
engrossed them ; for I will venture (contrary to the 
custom of profound historians, who always assign deep 
causes for great events) to ascribe the better half of the 
Duke of Marlborough's greatness and riches to those 
graces. He was eminently illiterate : wrote bad English, 
and spelt it worse. He had no share of what is commonly 
called parts ; that is, no brightness, nothing shining in his 
genius. He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good 
plain understanding, with sound judgment. But these 






Matter and Manner. 365 

alone would probably have raised him but something 
higher than they found him, which was page to King 
James II. 's Queen. There the graces protected and 
promoted him ; for while he was Ensign of the Guards, 
the Duchess of Cleveland, then favourite mistress of 
Charles II., struck by these very graces, gave him five 
thousand pounds ; with which he immediately bought an 
annuity of Hve hundred pounds a year, which was the 
foundation of his subsequent fortune. His figure was 
beautiful, but his manner was irresistible by either man or 
woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that 
he was enabled during all his wars to connect the various 
and jarring powers of the grand alliance, and to carry 
them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding 
their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrong- 
headedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was 
often obliged to go himself to some resty and refractory 
ones) he as constantly prevailed, and brought them into 
his measures." 

Grace in women has often more effect than beauty. 
We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an 
habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on 
its own sensations, and derives pleasure from all around 
it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. 
There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, 
" in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their 
face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a 
secret sympathy towards them. Their minds are a shrine 
where pleasure reposes. Their smile diffuses a sensation 
like the breath of spring. Petrarch's description of Laura 
answers exactly to this character, which is indeed the 
Italian character. Titian's pictures are full of it ; they 
seem sustained by sentiment, or as if the persons whom 
he painted sat to music. There is one in the Louvre (or 
there was) which had the most of this expression I ever 
remember. It did not look downward; "it looked 



366 Matter and Manner, 

forward beyond this world." It was a look that never 
passed away, but remained unalterable as the deep senti- 
ment which gave birth to it. It is the same constitutional 
character (together with infinite activity of mind) which 
has enabled the greatest man in modern history to bear 
his reverses of fortune with gay magnanimity, and to 
submit to the loss of the empire of the world with as 
little discomposure as if he had been playing a game at 
chess. 

After all, I would not be understood to say that manner 
is everything. 1 Nor would I put Euclid or Sir Isaac 
Newton on a level with the first petit-maitre we might 

1 Sheer impudence answers almost the same purpose. " Those 
impenetrable whiskers have confronted flames." Many persons, by 
looking big and talking loud, make their way through the world 
without any one good quality. I have here said nothing of mere per- 
sonal qualifications, which are another set-off against sterling merit. 
Fielding was of opinion that " the more solid pretensions of virtue 
and understanding vanish before perfect beauty.' , " A certain lady 
of a manor " (says Don Quixote in defence of his attachment to 
Dulcinea, which, however, was quite of the Platonic kind), " had 
cast the eyes of affection on a certain squ-t, brawny lay brother of a 
neighbouring monastery, to whom she was lavish of her favours. 
The head of the order remonstrated with her on this preference 
shown to one whom he represented as a very low, ignorant fellow, 
and set forth the superior pretensions of himself, and his more 
learned brethren. The lady having heard him to an end, made 
answer : All that you have said may be very true ; but know that 
in those points which I admire, Brother Chrysostom is as great a 
philosopher, nay greater, than Aristotle himself!" So the Wife of 
Bath : 

To chirche was myn housbond brought on morwe 

With neighebors that for him made sorwe, 

And Jankyn oure clerk was oon of tho. 

As help me God, whan that I saugh him go 

After the beere, methought he had a paire 

Of legges and of feet so clene and. faire, 

That al myn hert I yaf unto his hold. 

* ; All which, though we most potently believe, yet we hold it not 
honesty to have it thus set down." 






On Consistency of Opinion. 367 

happen to meet. I consider JEsop's Fables to Lave been 
a greater work of genius than Fontaine's translation of 
them; though I am not sure that I should not prefer 
Fontaine, for his style only, to Gay, who has shown a 
great deal of original invention. The elegant manners of 
people of fashion have been objected to me, to show the 
frivolity of external accomplishments, and the facility 
with which they are acquired. As to the last point, I 
demur. There are no class of people who lead so 
laborious a life, or who take more pains to cultivate their 
minds as well as persons, than people of fashion, A 
young lady of quality who has to devote so many hours 
a day to music, so many to dancing, so many to drawing 
so many to French, Italian, &c, certainly does not pass 
her time in idleness : and these accomplishments are 
afterwards called into action by every kind of external or 
mental stimulus, by the excitements of pleasure, vanity, 
and interest. A Ministerial or Opposition Lord goes 
through more drudgery than half a dozen literary hacks ; 
nor does a reviewer by profession read half the same 
number of publications as a modern fine lady is obliged 
to labour through. I confess, however, I am not a 
competent judge of the degree of elegance or refinement 
implied in the general tone of fashionable manners. The 
successful experiment made by Peregrine Pickle, in intro- 
ducing his strolling mistress into genteel company, does 
not redound greatly to their credit. 
1815. 



ESSAY X, 
On Consistency of Opinion. 

" Servetur ad imu.m 



Qualis ab inceptu processerit, et sibi constet." 

Many people boast of being masters in their own house. 
I pretend to be master of my own mind. I should be 



368 On Consistency of Opinion. 

sorry to have an ejectment served upon me for any 
notions I may choose to entertain there. Within that 
little circle I would fain be an absolute monarch. I do 
not profess the spirit of martyrdom ; I have no ambition 
to march to the stake, or up to a masked battery, in 
defence of an hypothesis : I do not court the rack : I do 
not wish to be flayed alive for affirming that two and two 
make four, or any other intricate proposition : I am shy 
of bodily pains and penalties, which some are fond of — 
imprisonment, fine, banishment, confiscation of goods : but 
if I do not prefer the independence of my mind to that of 
my body, I at least prefer it to everything else. I would 
avoid the arm of power, as I would escape from the fangs 
of a wild beast : but as to the opinion of the world, I see 
nothing formidable in it. "It is the eye of childhood 
that fears a painted devil." I am not to be browbeat or 
wheedled out of any of my settled convictions. Opinion 
to opinion, I will face any man. Prejudice, fashion, the 
cant of the moment, go for nothing ; and as for the reason 
of the thing, it can only be supposed to rest with me or 
another, in proportion to the pains we have taken to 
ascertain it. Where the pursuit of truth has been the 
habitual study of any man's life, the love of truth will be 
his ruling passion. " Where the treasure is, there the 
heart is also." Every one is most tenacious of that to 
which he owes his distinction from others. Kings love 
power, misers gold, women flattery, poets reputation — and 
philosophers truth, when they can find it. They are 
right in cherishing the only privilege they inherit. If 
" to be wise were to be obstinate," I might set up for as 
great a philosopher as the best of them ; for some of my 
conclusions are as fixed and as incorrigible to prool as 
need be. I am attached to them in consequence of the 
pains, and anxiety, and the waste of time they have cost 
me. In fact, I should not well know what to do without 
them at this time of day ; nor how to get others to supply 






On Consistency of Opinion. 369 

their place. I would quarrel with the best friend I have 
sooner than acknowledge the absolute right of the Bour- 
bons. I see Mr. Northcote seldomer than I did, because 
I cannot agree with him about the Catalogue Baisonne. 1 
I remember once saying to this gentleman, a great while 
ago, that I did not seem to have altered any of my ideas 
since I was sixteen years old. "Why then," said he, 
" you are no wiser now than you were then !" I might 
make the same confession, and the same retort would 
apply still. Coleridge used to tell me, that this pertina- 
city was owing to a want of sympathy with others. What 
he calls sympathising with others is their admiring him ; 
and it must be admitted that he varies his battery pretty 
often, in order to accommodate himself to this sort of 
mutual understanding. But I do not agree in what he 
says of me. On the other hand, I think that it is my 
sympathising beforehand with the different views and 
feelings that may be entertained on a subject, that pre- 
vents me retracting my judgment, and flinging myself 
into the contrary extreme afterwards. If you proscribe 
all opinion opposite to your own, and impertinently ex- 
clude all the evidence that does not make for you, it stares 
you in the face with double force when it breaks in 
unexpectedly upon you, or if at any subsequent period 
it happens to suit your interest or convenience to listen 
to objections which vanity or prudence had hitherto 
overlooked. But if you are aware from the first sugges- 
tion of a subject, either by subtlety, or tact, or close 
attention, of the full force of what others possibly feel 
and think of it, you are not exposed to the same vacillation 
of opinion. The number of grains and scruples, of doubts 
and difficulties, thrown into the scale while the balance is 
yet undecided, add to the weight and steadiness of the 
determination. He who anticipates his opponent's argu- 
ments, confirms while he corrects his own reasonings. 
1 See Memoirs, i, 211. — Ed. 

2 B 



370 On Consistency of Opinion. 

When a question has been carefully examined in all its 
bearings, and a principle is once established, it is not 
liable to be overthrown by any new facts which have been 
arbitrarily and petulantly set aside, nor by every wind of 
idle doctrine rushing into the interstices of a hollow 
speculation, shattering it in pieces, and leaving it a 
mockery and a bye-word ; like those tall, gawky, staring, 
pyramidal erections which are seen scattered over dif- 
ferent parts of the country, and are called the Follies of 
different gentlemen ! A man may be confident in main- 
taining a side, as he has been cautious in choosing it. If 
after making up his mind strongly in one way, to the best 
of his capacity and judgment, he feels himself inclined to 
a very violent revulsion of sentiment, he may generally 
rest assured that the change is in himself and his motives, 
not in the reason of things. 

I cannot say that, from my own experience, I have 
found that the persons most remarkable for sudden and 
violent changes of principle have been cast in the softest 
or most susceptible mould. All their notions have been 
exclusive, bigoted, and intolerant. Their want of con- 
sistency and moderation has been in exact proportion to 
their want of candour and comprehensiveness of mind. 
Instead of being the creatures of sympathy, open to con- 
viction, unwilling to give offence by the smallest difference 
of sentiment, they have (for the most part) been made up 
of mere antipathies — a very repulsive sort of personages — 
at odds with themselves, and with everybody else. The 
slenderness of their pretensions to philosophical inquiry 
has been accompanied with the most presumptuous dog- 
matism. They have been persons of that narrowness of 
view and headstrong self-sufficiency of purpose, that they 
could see only one side of a question at a time, and 
whichever they pleased. There is a story somewhere in 
Don Quixote, of two champions coming to a shield hung 
up against a tree with an inscription written on each side 



On Consistency of Opinion. 371 

of it. Each of them maintained, that the words were 
what was written on the side next him, and never dreamt, 
till the fray was over, that they might be different on the 
opposite side of the shield. It would have been a little 
more extraordinary if the combatants had changed sides 
in the heat of the scuffle, and stoutly denied that there 
were any such words on the opposite side as they had 
before been bent on sacrificing their lives to prove were 
the only ones it contained. Yet such is the very situation 
of some of our modern polemics. They have been of all 
sides of the question, and yet they cannot conceive how 
an honest man can be of any but one — that which they 
hold at present. It seems that they are afraid to look 
their old opinions in the face, lest they should be fasci- 
nated by them once more. They banish all doubts of 
their own sincerity by inveighing against the motives of 
their antagonists. There is no salvation out of the pale of 
their strange inconsistency. They reduce common sense 
and probity to the straitest possible limits — the breasts of 
themselves and their patrons. They are like people out at 
sea on a very narrow plank, who try to push everybody else 
off. Is it that they have so little faith in the course to 
which they have become such staunch converts, as to 
suppose that, should they allow a grain of sense to their 
old allies and new antagonists, they will have more than 
they ? Is it that they have so little consciousness of their 
own disinterestedness, that they feel, if they allow a 
particle of honesty to those who now differ with them, 
they will have more than they? Those opinions must 
needs be of a very fragile texture which will not stand the 
shock of the least acknowledged opposition, and which 
lay claim to respectability by stigmatising all who do not 
hold them as " sots, and knaves, and cowards." There is 
a want of well-balanced feeling in every such instance of 
extravagant versatility ; a something crude, unripe, and 
harsh, that does not hit a judicious palate, but sets the 



372 On Consistency of Opinion. 

teeth on edge to think of. " I had rather hear my 
mother's cat mew, or a wheel grate on the axletree, than 
one of these same metre-ballad-mongers " chaunt his in- 
condite, retrograde lays, without rhyme and without reason 
The principles and professions change : the man re- 
mains the same. There is the same spirit at the bottom 
of all this pragmatical fickleness and virulence, whether it 
runs into one extreme or another : to wit, a confinement 
of view, a jealousy of others, an impatience of contra- 
diction, a want of liberality in construing the motives of 
others, either from monkish pedantry, or a conceited 
overweening reference of everything to our own fancies 
and feelings. There is something to be said, indeed, for 
the nature of the political machinery, for the whirling 
motion of the revolutionary wheel which has of late 
wrenched men's understandings almost asunder, and 
"amazed the very faculties of eyes and ears;" but still 
this is hardly a sufficient reason, why the adept in the old 
as well as the new school should take such a prodigious 
latitude himself, while at the same time he makes so little 
allowance for others. His whole creed need not be 
turned topsy-turvy, from the top to the bottom, even in 
times like these. He need not, in the rage of party spirit, 
discard the proper attributes of humanity, the common 
dictates of reason. He need not outrage every former 
feeling, nor trample on every customary decency, in his 
zeal for reform, or in his greater zeal against it. If his 
mind, like his body, has undergone a total change of 
essence, and purged off the taint of all its early opinions, 
he need not carry about with him, or be haunted in the 
persons of others with, the phantoms of his altered prin- 
ciples to loathe and execrate them. He need not (as it 
were) pass an act of attainder on all his thoughts, hopes, 
wishes, from youth upwards, to offer them at the shrine of 
.-rtitured servility: he need not become one vile antithesis, 
a living and ignominious satire on himself. 



i 



On Consistency of Opinion. 373 

A gentleman went to live, some years ago, in a remote 
part of the country, and as lie did not wish to affect 
singularity, he used to have two candles on his table of an 
evening. A romantic acquaintance of his in the neigh- 
bourhood, smit with the love of simplicity and equality, 
used to come in, and without ceremony snuff one of them 
out, saying, it was a shame to indulge in such extrava- 
gance, while many poor cottagers had not even a rush- 
light to see to do their evening's work by. This might 
be about the year 1802, and was passed over as among the 
ordinary occurrences of the day. In 1816 (oh! fearful 
lapse of time, pregnant with strange mutability), the same 
enthusiastic lover of economy, and hater of luxury, asked 
his thoughtless friend to dine with him in company with 
a certain lord, and to lend him his man servant to wait at 
table ; and just before they were sitting down to dinner, 
he heard him say to the servant in a sonorous whisper — 
" and be sure you don't forget to have six candles on the 
table!" Extremes meet. The event here was as true to 
itself as the oscillation of the pendulum. My informant, 
who understands moral equations, had looked for this 
reaction, and noted it down as characteristic. The im- 
pertinence in the first instance was the cue to the 
ostentatious servility in the second. The one was the 
fulfilment of the other, like the type and anti-type of a 
prophecy. No — the keeping of the character at the end 
of fourteen years was as unique as the keeping of the 
thought to the end of the fourteen lines of a sonnet! 
Would it sound strange if I were to whisper it in the 
reader's ear, that it was the same person who was thus 
anxious to see six candles on the table to receive a lord, 
who once (in ages past) said to me, that "he saw nothing 
to admire in the eloquence of such men as Mansfield and 
Chatham ; and what did it all end in, but their being 
made lords ? " It is better to be a lord than a lacquey 
to a lord ! So we see that the swelling pride and pre- 



374 On Consistency of Opinion. 

posterous self-opinion which exalts itself above the 

mightiest, looking down upon and braving the boasted 

pretensions of the highest rank and the most brilliant 

talents as nothing, compared with its own conscious 

powers and silent unmoved self-respect, grovels and licks 

the dust before titled wealth, like a lacquered slave, the 

moment it can get wages and a livery ! Would Milton or 

Marvel have done this ? 

Mr. Coleridge, indeed, sets down this outragous want of 

keeping to an excess of sympathy, and there is, after all, 

some truth in his suggestion. There is a craving after 

the approbation and concurrence of others natural to the 

mind of man. It is difficult to sustain the weight of an 

opinion singly for any length of way. The intellect 

languishes without cordial encouragement and support. 

It exhausts both strength and patience to be always 

striving against the stream. Contra audentior ito is the 

motto but of few. Public opinion is always pressing upon 

the mind, and, like the air we breathe, acts unseen, unfelt. 

It supplies the living current of our thoughts, and infects 

without our knowledge. It taints the blood, and is taken 

into the smallest pores. The most sanguine constitutions 

are, perhaps, the most exposed to its influence. But 

public opinion has its source in power, in popular pre- 

judice, and is not always in accord with right reason, or a 

high and abstracted imagination. Which path to follow 

where the two roads part ? The heroic and romantic 

resolution prevails at first in high and heroic tempers. 

Tbey think to scale the heights of truth and virtue at 

once with him " whose genius had angelic wings, and fed 

on manna," — but after a time find themselves baffled, 

toiling on in an uphill road, without friends, in a cold 

neighbourhood, without aid or prospect of success. The 

poet 

u Like a worm goes by the way." 

He hears murmurs loud or suppressed, meets blank looks 



On Consistency of Opinion. 375 

or scowling faces, is exposed to the pelting of the pitiless 
press, and is stunned by the shout of the mob, that gather 
round him to see what sort of a creature a poet and a 
philosopher is. What is there to make him proof against 
all this? A strength of understanding steeled against 
temptation, and a dear love of truth that smiles opinion to 
scorn. These he perhaps has not. A lord passes in his 
coach. Might he not get up, and ride out of the reach of 
the rabble-rout? He is invited to stop dinner. If he 
stays he might insinuate some wholesome truths. He 
drinks in rank poison — flattery ! He recites some verses 
to the ladies, who smile delicious praise, and thank him 
through their tears. The master of the house suggests a 
happy allusion in the turn of an expression, " There's 
sympathy." This is better than the company he lately 
left. Pictures, statues meet his raptured eye. Our 
Ulysses finds himself in the gardens of Alcinous: our 
truant is fairly caught. He wanders through enchanted 
ground. Groves, classic groves, nod unto him, and he 
hears " ancestral voices " hailing him as brother bard ! 
He sleeps, dreams, and wakes cured of his thriftless pre- 
judices and morose philanthropy. He likes this courtly 
and popular sympathy better. " He looks up with awe to 
kings ; with honour to nobility ; with reverence to magis- 
trates," &c. He no longer breathes the air of heaven and 
his own thoughts, but is steeped in that of palaces and 
courts, and finds it agree better with his constitutional 
temperament. Oh! how sympathy alters a man from 
what he was ! 

" I've heard of hearts unkind, 
Kind deeds with cold returning ; 
Alas ! the gratitude of man 
Has often er set me mourning." 

A spirit of contradiction, a wish to monopolise all wisdom, 
will not account for uniform consistency, for it is sure to 
defeat and turn against itself. It is " everything by turns, 



376 On Consistency of Opinion. 

and nothing long." It is warped and crooked. It cannot 
bear the least opposition, and sooner than acquiesce in 
what others approve it will change sides in a day. It is 
offended at every resistance to its captious, domineering 
humour, and will quarrel for straws with its best friends. 
A person under the guidance of this demon, if every 
whimsy or occult discovery of his own is not received with 
acclamation by one party, will wreak his spite by 
deserting to the other, and carry all his talent for dis- 
putation with him, sharpened by rage and disaj)pointment. 
A man, to be steady in a cause, should be more attached 
to the truth than to the acquiescence of his fellow 
citizens. 

I can hardly consider Mr. Coleridge a deserter from 
the cause he first espoused, unless one could tell what 
cause he ever heartily espoused, or what party he ever 
belonged to, in downright earnest. He has not been 
inconsistent with himself at different times, but at all 
times. He is a sophist, a casuist, a rhetorician, what you 
please, and might have argued or declaimed to the end of 
his breath on one side of a question or another, but he 
never was a pragmatical fellow. He lived in a round of 
contradictions, and never came to a settled point. His 
fancy gave the cue to his judgment, and his vanity set his 
invention afloat in whatever direction he could find most 
scope for it, or most sympathy, that is, admiration. His 
Life and Opinidns might naturally receive the title 
of one of Hume's Essays — A Sceptical Solution of Scep- 
tical Doubts. To be sure, his Watchman and his 
Friend breathe a somewhat different tone on subjects of 
a particular description, both of them apparently pretty 
high-raised, but whoever will be at the pains to examine 
them closely, will find them to be voluntaries, fugues, 
solemn capriccios, not set compositions with any malice 
prepense in them, or much practical meaning. 1 believe 
some of his friends, who were indebted to him for the 






On Consistency of Opinion. 377 

suggestion of plausible reasons for conformity, and an 
opening to a more qualified view of the letter of their 
paradoxical principles, have lately disgusted him by the 
virulence and extravagance to which they have carried 
hints, of which he never suspected that they would make 
the least possible use. But if Mr. Coleridge is satisfied 
with the wandering Moods of his Mind, perhaps this is no 
reason that others may not reap the solid benefit. He 
himself is like the idle sea-weed on the ocean, tossed from 
shore to shore: they are like barnacles fastened to the 
vessel of state, rotting its goodly timbers ! 

There are some persons who are of too fastidious a turn of 
mind to like anything long, or to assent twice to the same 

opinion. always sets himself to prop the falling 

cause, to nurse the ricketty bantling. He takes the part 
which he thinks in most need of his support, not so much 
out of magnanimity, as to prevent too great a degree of 
presumption or self-complacency on the triumphant side. 
" Though truth be truth, yet he contrives to throw such 
changes of vexation on it as it may lose some colour." I 
have been delighted to hear him expatiate with the most 
natural and affecting simplicity on a favourite passage or 
picture, and all the while afraid of agreeing with him, lest 
he should instantly turn round and unsay all that he had 
said, for fear of my going away with too good an opinion 
of my own taste, or too great an admiration of my idol — 
and his own. I dare not ask his opinion twice, if J have 
got a favourable sentence once, lest he should belie his 
own sentiments to stagger mine. I have heard him talk 
divinely (like one inspired) of Boccaccio, and the story of 
the Pot of Basil, describing " how it grew, and it grew, 
and it grew," till you saw it spread its tender leaves in 
the light of his eye, and wave in the tremulous sound of 
his voice ; and yet if you asked him about it another time, 
he would, perhaps, affect to think little of it, or to have 
forgotten the circumstance. His enthusiasm is fickle and 



378 On Consistency of Opinion. 

treacherous. The instant he finds it shared in common, 
he backs out of it. His enmity is equally refined, but 
hardly so unsocial. His exquisitely-turned invectives 
display all the beauty of scorn, and impart elegance to 
vulgarity. He sometimes finds out minute excellences, and 
cries up one thing to put you out of conceit with another. 
If you want him to praise Sir Joshua con amove, in his 
best manner, you should begin with saying something 
about Titian — if you seem an idoliser of Sir Joshua, he 
will immediately turn off the discourse, gliding like the 
serpent before Eve, wary and beautiful, to the graces of 
Sir Peter Lely, or ask if you saw a Vandyke the other day, 
which he does not think Sir Joshua could stand near. 
But find fault with the Lake Poets, and mention some 
pretended patron of rising genius, and you need not fear 
but he will join in with you and go all lengths that you 
can wish him. You may calculate upon him there. 
" Pride elevates, and joy brightens his face." And, indeed, 
so eloquent is he, and so beautiful in his eloquence, that 
I myself, with all my freedom from gall and bitterness, 
could listen to him untired, and without knowing how the 
the time went, losing and neglecting many a meal and 
hour, 

— " From morn to noon, 

From noon to dewy eve, a summer's day." 

When I cease to hear him quite, other tongues, turned 
to what accents they may of praise or blame, would sound 
dull, ungrateful, out of tune, and harsh, in the com- 
parison. 

An overstrained enthusiasm produces a capriciousness 
in taste, as well as too much indifference. A person who 
sets no bounds to his admiration takes a surfeit of his 
favourites. He over- does the thing. He gets sick of his 
own everlasting praises, and affected ruptures. His pre- 
ferences are a great deal too violent to last. He wears 
out an author in a week, that might last him a year, or his 



On Consistency of Opinion. 379 

life, by the eagerness with which he devours him. Every 
such favourite is in his turn the greatest writer in the 
world. Compared with the lord of the ascendent for the 
time being, Shakspeare is commonplace, and Milton a 
pedant, a little insipid or so. Some of these prodigies 
require to be dragged out of their lurking-places, and 
cried up to the top of the compass; their traits are 
subtle, and must be violently obtruded on the sight. But 
the effort of exaggerated praise, though it may stagger 
others, tires the maker, and we hear of them no more after 
awhile. Others take their turns, are swallowed whole, 
undigested, ravenously, and disappear in the same manner. 
Good authors share the fate of bad, and a library in a few 
years is nearly dismantled. It is a pity thus to outlive 
our admiration, and exhaust our relish of what is excellent. 
Actors and actresses are disposed of in the same conclusive 
peremptory way : some of them are talked of for months, 
nay, years ; then it is almost an offence to mention them. 
Friends, acquaintance, go the same road : are now asked 
to come six days in the week, then warned against coming 
the seventh. The smallest faults are soon magnified in 
those we think too highly of: but where shall we find 
perfection ? If we will put up with nothing short of that, 
we shall have neither pictures, books, nor friends left — 
we shall have nothing but our own absurdities to keep 
company with ! "In all things a regular and moderate 
indulgence is the best security for a lasting enjoyment." 

There are numbers who judge by the event, and change 
with fortune. They extol the hero of the day, and join 
the prevailing clamour, whatever it is ; so that the fluc- 
tuating state of public opinion regulates their feverish, 
restless enthusiasm, like a thermometer. They blow hot 
or cold, according as the wind sets favourably or otherwise. 
With such people the only infallible test of merit is 
success ; and no arguments are true that have not a large 
or powerful majority on their side. They go by appear- 



380 On Consistency of Opinion. 

ances. Their vanity, not the truth, is their ruling object. 
They are not the last to quit a falling cause, and they are 
the first to hail the rising sun. Their minds want 
sincerity, modesty, and keeping. With them — 

" To have done is to hang 



Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery." 

They still, " with one consent, praise new-born gauds," 
and Fame, as they construe it, is 

" Like a fashionable host, 



That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; 
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, 
Grasps the in comer. Welcome ever smiles, 
And Farewell goes out sighing." 

Such servile flatterers made an idol of Buonaparte while 
fortune smiled upon him, but when it left him, they 
removed him from his pedestal in the cabinet of their 
vanity, as we take down the picture of a relation that has 
died without naming us in his will. The opinion of such 
triflers is worth nothing ; it is merely an echo. We do 
not want to be told the event of a question, but the rights 
of it. Truth is in their theory nothing but Ci noise and 
inexplicable dumb show." They are the heralds, out- 
riders, and trumpeters in the procession of fame ; are 
more loud and boisterous than the rest, and give them- 
selves great airs, as the avowed patrons and admirers of 
genius and merit. As there are many who change their 
sentiments with circumstances (as they decided lawsuits 
in Eabelais with the dice), so there are others who change 
them with their acquaintance. " Tell me your company, and 
I'll tell you your opinions," might be said to many a man 
who piques himself on a select and superior view of things, 
distinct from the vulgar. Individuals of this class are 
quick and versatile, but they are not beforehand with 
opinion. They catch it, when it is pointed out to them, 



On Consistency of Opinion. 381 

and take it at the rebound, instead of giving the first 
impulse. Their minds are a light, luxuriant soil, into 
which thoughts are easily transplanted, and shoot up with 
uncommon sprightliness and vigour. They wear the 
dress of other people's minds very gracefully and un- 
consciously. They tell you your own opinion, or very 
gravely repeat an observation you have made to them 
about half a year afterwards. They let you into the 
delicacies and luxuries of Spenser with great disinter- 
estedness, in return for your having introduced that author 
to their notice. They prefer West to Eaphael, Stothard 
to Eubens, till they are told better. Still they are acute 
in the main, and good judges in their way. By trying 
to improve their tastes, and reform their notions accord- 
ing to an ideal standard, they perhaps spoil and muddle 
their native faculties, rather than do them any good. 
Their first manner is their best, because it is the most 
natural. It is well not to go out of ourselves, and to be 
contented to take up with what we are, for better for 
worse. We can neither beg, borrow, nor steal character- 
istic excellences. Some views and modes of thinking 
suit certain minds, as certain colours suit certain com- 
plexions. We may part with very shining and very 
useful qualities, without getting better ones to supply 
them. Mocking is catching, only in regard to defects. 
Mimicry is always dangerous. 

It is not necessary to change our road in order to 
advance on our journey. We should cultivate the spot 
of ground we possess to the utmost of our power, though 
it may be circumscribed and comparatively barren. A 
rolling stone gathers no moss. People may collect all the 
wisdom they will ever attain, quite as well by staying at 
home as by travelling abroad. There is no use in shifting 
from place to place, from side to side, or from subject to 
subject. You have always to begin again, and never finish 
any course of study or observation. By adhering to the 



382 On Consistency of Opinion. 

same principles you do not become stationary. You 
enlarge, correct, and consolidate your reasonings, without 
contradicting and shuffling about in your conclusions. 
If truth consisted in hasty assumptions and petulant con- 
tradictions, there might be some ground for this whiffling 
and violent inconsistency. But the face of truth, like that 
of nature, is different and the same. The first outline of 
an opinion, and the general tone of thinking, may be sound 
and correct, though we may spend any quantity of time 
and pains in working up and uniting the parts at sub- 
sequent sittings. If we have misconceived the character 
of the countenance altogether at first, no alterations will 
bring it right afterwards. Those who mistake white for 
black in the first instance, may as well mistake black for 
white when they reverse their canvas. I do not see what 
security they can have in their present opinions, who 
build their pretensions to wisdom on the total folly, rash- 
ness, and extravagance (to say no worse) of their former 
ones. The perspective may change with years and ex- 
perience : we may see certain things nearer, and others 
more remote ; but the great masses and landmarks will 
remain, though thrown into shadow and tinged by the 
intervening atmosphere : so the laws of the understanding, 
the truth of nature, will remain, and cannot be thrown 
into utter confusion and perplexity by our blunders or 
caprice, like the objects in Hogarth's Bides of Perspec- 
tive, where everything is turned upside down, or thrust 
out of its well-known place. I cannot understand how 
our political Harlequins feel after all their summersaults 
and metamorphoses. They can hardly, I should think, 
look at themselves in the glass, or walk across the room 
without stumbling. This at least would be the case if 
they had the least reflection or self-knowledge. But they 
judge from pique and vanity solely. There should be a 
certain decorum in life, as in a picture, without which it is 
neither useful nor agreeable. If my opinions are not 



Project for a New Theory. 383 

right, at any rate they are the best I have been able to 
form, and better than any others I could take up at random, 
or out of perversity, now. Contrary opiuions vitiate one 
another, and destroy the simplicity and clearness of the 
mind : nothing is good that has not a beginning, a middle, 
and an end ; and I would wish my thoughts to be 

" Linked each to each by natural piety." 
1821. 

ESSAY XI. 

Project for a New Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation. 

Whex I was about fourteen (as long ago as the year 
1792), in consequence of a dispute, one day after coming 
out of meeting, between my father and an old lady of the 
congregation, respecting the repeal of the Corporation and 
Test Acts and the limits of religious toleration, I set 
about forming in my head (the first time I ever attempted 
to think) the following system of political rights and 
general jurisprudence. 

It was this circumstance that decided the fate of my 
future life ; oi rather, I would say it was from an original 
bias or craving to be satisfied of the reason of things, that 
I seized hold of this accidental opportunity to indulge in 
its uneasy and unconscious determination. Mr. Currie, 
my old tutor at Hackney, may still have the rough 
draught of this speculation, which I gave him with tears 
in my eyes, and which he good-naturedly accepted in lieu 
of the customary themes, and as a proof that I was no idler, 
but that my inability to produce a line on the ordinary- 
school topics arose from my being involved in more diffi- 
cult and abstuse matters. He must smile at the so oft- 
repeated charge against me of florid flippancy and tinsel. 
If from those briars I have since plucked roses, what 
labour has it not cost me ? The Test and Corporation 
Acts were repealed the other day. How would my father 



384 Project for a New Theory of 

have rejoiced if this had happened in his time, and in con- 
cert with his old friends Dr. Price, Dr. Priestly, and 
others ! but now that there is no one to care about it, they 
give as a boon to indifference what they so long refused to 
justice, and thus ascribed by some to the liberality of the 
age ! Spirit of contradiction ! when wilt thou cease to 
rule over sublunary affairs, as the moon governs the tides ? 
Not till the unexpected stroke of a comet throws up a 
new breed of men and animals from the bowels of the 
earth ; nor then neither, since it is included in the very 
idea of all life, power, and motion. For and against are 
inseparable terms. But not to wander any farther from 
the point — 

I began with trying to define what a right meant ; and 
this I settled with myself was not simply that which is 
good or useful in itself, but that which is thought so by 
the individual, and which has the sanction of his will as 
such. 1. Because the determining what is good in itself 
is an endless question. 2. Because one person's having a 
right to any good, and another being made the judge of it, 
leaves him without any security for its being exercised to 
his advantage, whereas self-love is a natural guarantee for 
our self-interest. 3. A thing being willed is the most 
absolute moral reason for its existence : that a thing is 
good in itself is no reason whatever why it should exist, 
till the will clothes it with a power to act as a motive ; 
and there is certainly nothing to prevent this will from 
taking effect (no law or admitted plea above it) but another 
will opposed to it, and which forms a right on the same 
principle. A good is only so far a right, inasmuch as it 
virtually determines the will ; for a right meant that which 
contains within itself, and as respects the bosom in which 
it is lodged, a cogent and unanswerable reason why it 
should exist. Suppose I have a violent aversion to one 
thing and as strong an attachment to something else, and 
that there is no other being in the world but myself, shall 






Civil and Criminal Legislation. 385 

I not have a self-evident right, full title, liberty, to pursue 
the one and avoid the other ? That is to say, in other 
words, there can be no authority to interpose between the 
strong natural tendency of the will and its desired effect, 
but the will of another. It may be replied that reason, 
that affection, may interpose between the will and the act ; 
but there are motives that influence the conduct by first 
altering the will; and the point at issue is, that these 
being away, what other principle or lever is there always 
left to appeal to, before we come to blows ? Now, such a 
principle is to be found in self-interest ; and such a barrier 
against the violent will is erected by the limits which this 
principle necessarily sets to itself in the claims of different 
individuals. Thus, then, a right is not that which is 
right in itself, or best for the whole, or even for the 
individual, but that which is good in his own eyes, and 
according to his own will ; and to which, among a number 
of equally selfish and self-willed beings, he can lay claim, 
allowing the same latitude and allowance to others. Poli- 
tical justice is that which assigns the limits of these 
individual rights in society, or it is the adjustment of 
force against force, of will against will, to prevent worse 
consequences. In the savage state there is nothing but an 
appeal to brute force, or the right of the strongest; 
Politics lays down a rule to curb and measure out the 
wills of individuals in equal portions ; Morals has a 
higher standard still, and ought never to appeal to force 
in any case whatever. Hence I always found something 
wanting in Mr. Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political 
Justice (which I read soon after with great avidity, and 
hoped, from its title and its vast reputation, to get entire 
satisfaction from it), for he makes no distinction between 
political justice, which implies an appeal to force, and 
moral justice, which implies only an appeal to reason. It 
is surely a distinct question, what you can persuade people 
to do by argument and fair discussion, and what you may 

2 c 



386 Project for a New Theory of 

lawfully compel them to do, when reason and remonstrance 
fail. But in Mr. Godwin's system the " omnipotence of 
reason " supersedes the use of law and government, merges 
the imperfection of the means in the grandeur of the end, 
and leaves but one class of ideas or motives, the highest 
and the least attainable possible. So promises and oaths 
are said to be of no more value than common breath ; nor 
would they, if every word we uttered was infalKble and 
oracular, as if delivered from a Tripod. Bii . this is 
pragmatical, and putting an imaginary for a reai state of 
things. Again, right and duties, according to Mr. Godwin, 
are reciprocal. I could not comprehend this without an 
arbitrary definition that took away the meaning. In my 
sense, a man might have a right, a discriminating power, 
to do something, which others could not deprive him of, 
without a manifest infraction of certain rules laid down 
for the peace and order of society, but which it might be 
his duty to waive upon good reasons shown ; rights are 
seconded by force, duties are things of choice. This is the 
import of the words in common speech : why then pass 
over this distinction in a work confessedly rhetorical as 
well as logical, that is, which laid an equal stress on sound 
and sense ? Eight, therefore, has a personal or selfish 
reference, as it is founded on the law which determines a 
man's actions in regard to his own being and well-being ; 
and political justice is that which assigns the limits of 
these individual rights on their compatibility or incom- 
patibility with each other in society. Eight, in a word, 
is the duty which each man owes to himself ; or it is that 
portion of the general good of which (as being principally 
interested) he is made the special judge, and which is put 
under his immediate keeping. 

The next question I asked myself was, what is law and 
the real and necessary ground of civil government ? The 
answer to this is found in the former statement. Law is 
something to abridge, or, more properly speaking, to ascer- 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 387 

tain, the bounds of the original right, and to coerce the 
will of individuals in the community. Whence, then, has 
the community such a right ? It can only arise in self- 
defence, or from the necessity of maintaining the equal 
rights of every one, and of opposing force to force in case 
of any violent and unwarrantable infringement of them. 
Society consists of a given number of individuals ; and the 
aggregate right of government is only the consequence of 
these inherent rights, balancing and neutralising one 
another. How those who deny natural rights get at any 
sort of right, divine or human, I am at a loss to discover ; 
for whatever exists in combination, exists beforehand in an 
elementary state. The world is composed of atoms, and 
a machine cannot be made without materials. First, then, 
it follows that law or government is not the mere creature 
of a social compact, since each person has a certain right 
which he is bound to defend against another without 
asking that other's leave, or else the right would always 
be at the mercy of whoever chose to invade it. There 
would be a right to do wrong, but none to resist it. Thus 
I have a natural right to defend my life against a murderer, 
without any mutual compact between us ; hence society 
has an aggregate right of the same kind, and to make a 
law to that effect, forbidding and punishing murder. If 
there be no such immediate value and attachment to life 
felt by the individual, and a consequent justifiable de- 
termination to defend it, then the formal pretension of 
society to vindicate a right, which, according to this 
reasoning, has no existence in itself, must be founded on 
air, on a word, or a lawyer's ipse dixit. Secondly, society, 
or government, as such, has no right to trench upon the 
liberty or rights of the individuals its members, except as 
these last are, as it were, forfeited by interfering with and 
destroying one another, like opposite mechanical forces or 
quantities in arithmetic. Put the basis that each man's 
will is a sovereign law to itself: this can only hold in 



338 Project for a New Theory of 

society as long as he does not meddle with others ; but 
as long as he does not do this, the first principle retains 
its force, for there is no other principle to impeach or 
overrule it. The will of society is not a sufficient plea ; 
since this is, or ought to be, made up of the wills or rights 
of the individuals composing it, which by the supposition 
remain entire, and consequently without power to act. 
The good of society is not a sufficient plea, for individuals 
are only bound (on compulsion) not to do it harm, or to 
be barely just : benevolence and virtue are voluntary 
qualities. For instance, if two persons are obliged to do 
all that is possible for the good of both, this must either 
be settled voluntarily between them, and then it is friend< 
ship, and not force ; or if this is not the case, it is plain 
that one must be the slave, and lie at the caprice and 
mercy of the other : it will be one will forcibly regulating 
two bodies. But if each is left master of his own person 
and actions, with only the implied proviso of not encroach- 
ing on those of the other, then both may continue free and 
independent, and contented in their several spheres. One 
individual has no right to interfere with the employment 
of my muscular powers, or to put violence on my person, 
to force me to contribute to the most laudable undertaking 
if I do not approve of it, any more than I have to force 
him to assist me in the direct contrary : if one has not, 
ten have not, nor a million, any such arbitrary right over 
me. What one can be made to do for a million is very 
trifling : what a million may do by being left free in all 
that merely concerns themselves, and not subject to the 
perpetual caprice and insolence of authority, and pretext 
of the public good, is a very different calculation. By 
giving up the principle of political independence, it is not 
the million that will govern the one, but the one that will 
in time give law to the million. There are some things 
that cannot be free in natural society, and against which 
there is a natural law ; for instance, no one can be allowed 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 389 

to knock out another's brains or to fetter his limbs with 
impunity. And government is bound to prevent the same 
violations of liberty and justice. The question is, whether 
it would not be possible for a government to exist, and for 
a system of laws to be framed, that confined itself to the 
punishment of such offences, and left all the rest (except 
the suppression of force by force; optional or matter of 
mutual compact. What are a man's natural rights ? Those, 
the infringement of which cannot on any supposition go 
unpunished : by leaving all but cases of necessity to 
choice and reason, much would be perhaps gained, and 
nothing lost. 

Corollary 1. It results from the foregoing statement, 
that there is nothing naturally to restrain or oppose the 
will of one man, but the will of another meeting it. Thus, 
in a desert island, it is evident that my will and rights 
would be absolute and unlimited, and I might say with 
Eobinson Crusoe, "I am monarch of all I survey." 

Corollary 2. It is coming into society that circum- 
scribes my will and rights, by establishing equal and 
mutual rights, instead of the original uncircumscribed 
ones. They are still " founded as the rock," though not 
so broad and general as the casing air, for the only thing 
that limits them is the solidity of another right, no better 
than my own, and, like stones in a building, or a mosaic 
pavement, each remains not the less firmly riveted to its 
place, though it cannot encroach upon the next to it. I 
do not belong to the state, nor am I a nonentity in it, but 
I am one part of it, and independent in it, for that very 
reason that every one in it is independent of me. Equality, 
instead of being destroyed by society, results from and is 
improved by it ; for in politics, as in physics, the action 
and reaction are the same : the right of resistance on their 
part implies the right of self-defence on mine. In a 
theatre, each person has a right to his own seat, by the 
supposition that he has no right to intrude into any one 



390 Project for a New Theory of 

else's. They are convertible propositions. Away, then, 
with the notion that liberty and equality are inconsistent. 
But here is the artifice : by merging the rights and inde- 
pendence of the individual in the fictitious order of society, 
those rights become arbitrary, capricious, equivocal, 
removable at the pleasure of the state or ruling power ; 
there is nothing substantial or durable implied in them : 
if each has no positive claim, naturally, those of all taken 
together can mount up to nothing ; right and justice are 
mere blanks to be filled up with arbitrary will, and the 
people have thenceforward no defence against the govern- 
ment. On the other hand, suppose these rights to be not 
empty names or artificial arrangements, but original and 
inherent like solid atoms, then it is not in the power of 
government to annihilate one of them, whatever may be 
the confusion arising from their struggle for mastery, or 
before they can settle into order and harmony. Mr. 
Burke talks of the reflections and refractions of the rays 
of light as altering their primary essence and direction. 
But if there were no original rays of light, there could be 
neither refraction, nor reflections. Why, then, does he try 
by cloudy sophistry to blot the sun out of heaven ? One 
body impinges against and impedes another in the fall, 
but it could not do this, but for the principle of gravity. 
The author of the Sublime and Beautiful would have a 
single atom outweigh the great globe itself ; or an empty 
title, a bloated privilege, or a grievous wrong overturn the 
entire mass of truth and justice. The question between 
the author and his opponents appears to be simply this : 
whether politics, or the general good, is an affair of reason 
or imagination ! and this seems decided by another con- 
sideration, viz., that Imagination is the judge of individual 
things, and Reason of generals. Hence the great importance 
of the principle of universal suffrage ; for if the vote and 
choice of a single individual goes for nothing, so, by parity 
of reasoning, may that of all the rest of the community : but 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 391 

if the choice of every man in the community is held sacred, 
then what must be the weight and value of the whole. 

Many persons object that by this means property is not 
represented, and so, to avoid that, they would have nothing 
but property represented, at the same time that they pretend 
that if the elective franchise were thrown open to the poor, 
they would be wholly at the command of the rich, to the 
prejudice and exclusion of the middle and independent 
classes of society. Property always has a natural influence 
and authority: it is only people without property that 
have no natural protection, and require every artificial and 
legal one.. Those that have much, shall have none; and 
those that have little, shall have less. This proverb is no 
less true in public than in public life. The better orders 
(as they are called, and who, in virtue of this title, would 
assume a monopoly in the direction of state affairs) are 
merely and in plain English those who are better ojf than 
others ; and as they get the wished-for monopoly into 
their hands, others will uniformly be worse off, and will 
sink lower and lower in the scale ; so that it is essentially 
requisite to extend the elective franchise in order to 
counteract the excess of the great and increasing goodness 
of the better orders to themselves. I see no reason to 
suppose that in any case popular feeling (if free course 
were given to it) would bear down public opinion. 
Literature is at present pretty nearly on the footing of 
universal suffrage, yet the public defer sufficiently to the 
critics ; and when no party bias interferes, and the govern- 
ment do not make a point of running a writer down, the 
verdict is tolerably fair and just. I do not say that the 
result might not be equally satisfactory, when literature 
was patronised more immediately by the great ; but then 
lords and ladies had no interest in praising a bad piece 
and condemning a good one. If they could have laid a 
tax on the town for not going to it, they would have run a 
bad play forty nights together, or the whole year round, 



392 Project for a New Theory of 

without scruple. As things stand, the worse the law, the 
better for the lawmakers : it takes everything from others 
to give to them. It is common to insist on universal 
suffrage and the ballot together. But if the first were 
allowed, the second would be unnecessary. The ballot 
is only useful as a screen from arbitrary power. There is 
nothing manly or independent to recommend it. 

Corollary 3. If I was out at sea in a boat with &jure 
divino monarch, and he wanted to throw me overboard, I 
would not let him. No gentleman would ask such a thing, 
no freeman would submit, to it. Has he, then, a right to 
dispose of the lives and liberties of thirty millions of 
men ? Or have they more right than I have to resist his 
demands ? They have thirty millions of times that right, 
if they had a particle of the same spirit that I have. It 
is not the individual, then, whom in this case I fear (to 
me "there's no divinity doth hedge a king"), but thirty 
millions of his subjects that call me to account in his 
name, and who are of a most approved and indisputable 
loyalty, and who have both the right and power. The 
power rests with the multitude, but let them beware how 
the exercise of it turns against their own rights ! It is 
not the idol but the worshippers that are to be dreaded, 
and who, by degrading one of their fellows, render them- 
selves liable to be branded with the same indignities. 

Corollary 4. No one can be born a slave ; for my 
limbs are my own, and the power and the will to use them 
are anterior to all laws, and independent of the control of 
every other person. No one acquires a right over another 
but that other acquires some reciprocal right over him ; 
therefore the relation of master and slave is a contra- 
diction in political logic. Hence, also, it follows that 
combinations among labourers for the rise of wages are 
always just and lawful, as much as those among master 
manufacturers to keep them down. A man's labour is his 
own, at least as much as another's goods ; and he may 






Civil and Criminal Legislation. 393 

starve if lie pleases, but he may refuse to work except on 
his own terms. The right of property is reducible to 
this simple principle, that one man has not a right to the 
produce of another's labour, but each man has a right to 
the benefit of his own exertions and the use of his natural 
and inalienable powers, unless for a supposed equivalent 
and by mutual consent. Personal liberty and property 
therefore rest upon the same foundation. I am glad to 
see that Mr. Macculloch, in his Essay on Wages, admits 
the right of combination among journeymen and others. 
I laboured this point hard, and, I think, satisfactorily, a 
good while ago, in my Beply to Mr. Malthus. " Throw 
your bread upon the waters, and after many days you 
shall find it again." 

There are four things that a man may especially 
call his own, 1. His person. 2. His actions. 3. His 
property 4. His opinions. Let us see how each of these 
claims unavoidably circumscribes and modifies those of 
others, on the principle of abstract equity and necessity 
and independence above laid down. 

First, as to the Eights of Persons. My intention is 
to show that the right of society to make laws to coerce 
the will of others, is founded on the necessity of repelling 
the wanton encroachment of that will on their rights ; 
that is, strictly on the right of self-defence or resistance 
to aggression. Society comes forward and says, " Let us 
alone, and we will let you alone, otherwise we must see 
which is strongest;" its object is not to patronise or 
advise individuals for their good, and against their will, 
but to protect itself: meddling with others forcibly on 
any other plea or for any other purpose is impertinence. 
But equal rights destroy one another ; nor can there be a 
right to impossible or impracticable things. Let A, B, 
C, H, &c, be different component parts of any society, 
each claiming to be the centre and master of a certain 
sphere of activity and self-determination : as long as each 



394 Project for a Netv Theory of 

keeps within his own line of demarcation there is no 
harm done, nor any penalty incurred — it is only the 
superfluous and overbearing will of particular persons that 
must be restrained or lopped off by the axe of the law. 
Let A be the culprit : B, C, D, &c., or the rest of the 
community, are plaintiffs against A, and wish to prevent 
his taking any unfair or unwarranted advantage over 
them. They set up no pretence to dictate or domineer 
over him, but merely to hinder his dictating to and 
domineering over them ; and in this, having both might 
and right on their side, they have no difficulty in putting 
it in execution. Every man's independence and discre- 
tionary power over what peculiarly and exclusively 
concerns himself, is his castle (whether round, square, or, 
according to Mr. Owen's new map of improvements, in 
the form of a parallelogram). As long as he keeps 
within this, he is safe — society has no hold of him: 
it is when he quits it to attack his neighbours that they 
resort to reprisals, and make short work of the interloper. 
It is, however, time to endeavour to point out in what this 
natural division of right, and separate advantage consists. 
In the first place, A, B, C, D have the common and 
natural rights of persons, in so far that none of these 
has a right to offer violence to, or cause bodily pain or 
injury to any of the others. Sophists laugh at natural 
rights : they might as well deny that we have natural 
persons; for while the last distinction holds true and 
good by the constitution of things, certain consequences 
must and will follow from it — " while this machine is to 
us Hamlet," &c. For instance, I should like to know 
whether Mr. Burke, with his Sublime and Beautiful 
fancies, would deny that each person has a particular 
body and senses belonging to him, so that he feels a pecu- 
liar and natural interest in whatever affects these more 
than another can, and whether such a peculiar and 
paramount interest does not imply a direct and unavoid- 



Civil and Criminal Legislation, 395 

able right in maintaining this circle of individuality 
inviolate. To argue otherwise is to assert that indiffer- 
ence, or that which does not feel either the good or the 
ill, is as capable a judge and zealous a discriminator of 
right and wrong as that which does. The right, then, 
is coeval and co-extended with the interest, not a product 
of convention, but inseparable from the order of the 
universe ; the doctrine itself is natural and solid ; it is 
the contrary fallacy that is made of air and words. 
Mr. Burke, in such a question, was like a man out at sea 
in a haze, and could never tell the difference between 
land and clouds. If another break my arm by violence, 
this will not certainly give him additional health or 
strength ; if he stun me by a blow or inflict torture on my 
limbs, it is I who feel the pain, and not he; and it is 
hard if I, who am the sufferer, am not allowed to be the 
judge. That another should pretend to deprive me of it, 
or pretend to judge for me, and set up his will against 
mine, in what concerns this portion of my existence — 
where I have all at stake and he nothing — is not merely 
injustice, but impudence. The circle of personal security 
and right, then, is not an imaginary and arbitrary line 
fixed by law and the will of the prince, or the scaly finger 
of Mr. Hobbes's Leviathan, but is real and inherent in the 
nature of things, and itself the foundation of law and 
justice. " Hands off is fair play " — according to the old 
adage. One, therefore, has not a right to lay violent hands 
on another, or to infringe on the sphere of his personal 
identity ; one must not run foul of another, or he is 
liable to be repelled and punished for the offence. If you 
meet an Englishman suddenly in the street, he will run 
up against you sooner than get out of your way, which 
last he thinks a compromise of his dignity and a relin- 
quishment of his purpose, though he expects »you to get 
out of his. A Frenchman in the same circumstances will 
come up close to you, and try to walk over you, as if there 



396 Project for a New Theory of 

was no one in his way ; but if yon take no notice of him, 
he will step on one side, and make you a low bow. The 
one is a fellow of stubborn will, the other a petit maitre. 
An Englishman at a play mounts upon a bench, and 
refuses to get down at the request of another, who 
threatens to call him to account the next day. " Yes," is 
the answer of the first, "if your master will let you!" 
His abuse of liberty, he thinks, is justified by the other's 
want of it. All an Englishman's ideas are modifications 
of his will ; which shows, in one way, that right is founded 
on will, since the English are at once the freest and most 
wilful of all people. If you meet another on the ridge of 
a precipice, are you to throw each other down ? Certainly 
not. You are to pass as well as you can. " Give and 
take," is the rule of natural right, where the right is not 
all on one side and cannot be claimed entire. Equal 
weights and scales produce a balance, as much as where 
the scales are empty : so it does not follow (as our 
votaries of absolute power would insinuate) that one man's 
right is nothing because another's is something. But 
suppose there is not time to pass, and one or other must 
perish, in the case just mentioned, then each must do the 
best for himself that he can, and the instinct of self- 
preservation prevails over everything else. In the streets 
of London, the passengers take the right hand of one 
another and the wall alternately ; he who should not 
conform to this rule would be guilty of a breach of the 
peace. But if a house were falling, or a mad ox driven 
furiously by, the rule would be, of course, suspended, 
because the case would be out of the ordinary. Yet I 
think I can conceive, and have even known, persons 
capable of carrying the point of gallantry in political 
right to such a pitch as to refuse to take a precedence 
which did not belong to them in the most perilous cir- 
cumstances, just as a soldier may waive a right to quit 
his post, and takes his turn in battle. The actual col- 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 397 

lision or case of personal assault and battery, is, then, 
clearly prohibited, inasmuch as each person's body is 
clearly denned : but how if A use other means of annoy- 
ance against B, such as a sword or poison, or resort to 
what causes other painful sensations besides tangible 
ones, for instance, certain disagreeable sounds and smells ? 
Or, if these are included as a violation of personal rights, 
then how draw the line between them and the employing 
certain offensive words and gestures or uttering opinions 
which I disapprove ? This is a puzzler for the dogmatic 
school ; but they solve the whole difficulty by an assump- 
tion of utility, which is as much as to tell a person that 
the way to any place to which he asks a direction is "to 
follow his nose." We want to know by given marks and 
rules what is best and useful ; and they assure us very 
wisely, that this is infallibly and clearly determined by 
what is best and useful. Let us try something else. It 
seems no less necessary to erect certain little fortalices, 
with palisades and outworks about them, for Eight to 
establish and maintain itself in, than as landmarks to 
. guide us across the wide waste of Utility. If a person 
runs a sword through me, or administers poison, or 
procures it to be administered, the effect, the pain, disease 
or death is the same, and I have the same right to prevent 
it, on the principle that I am the sufferer ; that the injury 
is offered to me, and he is no gainer by it, except for 
mere malice or caprice, and I therefore remain master 
and judge of my own remedy, as in the former case ; 
the principle and definition of right being to secure to 
each individual the determination and protection of that 
portion of sensation in which he has the greatest, if 
not a sole interest, and, as it were, identity with it. 
Again, as to what are called nuisances, to wit offensive 
smells, sounds, &c, it is more difficult to determine 
on the ground that one mans meat is another mans 
poison. I remember a case occurred in the neighbour- 



398 Project for a New Theory oj 

hood where I was, and at the time I was trying my best at 
this question, which puzzled me a good deal. A rector of 
a little town in Shropshire, who was at variance with all his 
parishioners, had conceived a particular spite to a lawyer 
w r ho lived next door to him, and as a means of annoying 
him, used to get together all sorts of rubbish, weeds, 
and unsavoury materials, and set them on fire, so that the 
smoke should blow over into his neighbour's garden; 
whenever the wind set in that direction, he said, as a 
signal to his gardener, " It's a fine Wicksteed wind to-day ;" 
and the operation commenced. Was this an action of 
assault and battery, or not? I think it was, for this 
reason, that the offence was unequivocal, and that the only 
motive for the proceeding was the giving this offence. 
The assailant would not like to be served so himself. 
Mr. Bentham would say, the malice of the motive was a 
set-off to the injury. I shall leave that prima philosopliia 
consideration out of the question. A man who knocks out 
another's brains with a bludgeon may say it pleases him 
to do so ; but will it please him to have the compliment 
returned ? If he still persists, in spite of this punishment, 
there is no preventing him ; but if not, then it is a proof 
that he thinks the pleasure less than the pain to himself, 
and consequently to another in the scales of justice. The 
lex talionis is an excellent test. Suppose a third person 
(the physician of the place) had said, " It is a fine Eger- 
ton wind to-day," our rector would have been non-plussed ; 
for he would have found that, as he suffered all the hard- 
ship, he had the right to complain of and to resist an 
action of another, the consequences of which affected 
principally himself. Now mark : if he had himself had 
any advantage to derive from the action, which he could 
not obtain in any other way, then he would feel that his 
neighbour also had the same plea and right to follow his 
own course (still this might be a doubtful point) ; but in 
the other case it would be sheer malice and wanton inter- 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 399 

ference; that is, not the exercise of a right, but the 
invasion of another's comfort and independence. Has 
a person, then, a right to play on the horn or on a flute, 
on the same staircase ? I say, yes ; because it is for his 
own improvement and pleasure, and not to annoy another ; 
and because, accordingly, every one in his own case would 
wish to reserve this or a similar privilege to himself. I 
do not think a person has a right to beat a drum under 
one's window, because this is altogether disagreeable, 
and if there is an extraordinary motive for it. then it is 
fit that the person should be put to some little incon- 
venience in removing his sphere of liberty of action to a 
reasonable distance. A tallow-chandler's shop or a steam- 
engine is a nuisance in a town, and ought to be removed 
into the suburbs ; but they are to be tolerated where they 
are least inconvenient, because they are necessary some- 
where, and there is no remedying the inconvenience. The 
right to protest against and to prohibit them rests with the 
suffering party ; but because this point of the greatest in- 
terest is less clear in some cases than in others, it does not 
follow that there is no right or principle of justice in the 
case. 3. As to matters of contempt and the expression of 
opinion, I think these do not fall under the head of force, 
and are not, on that ground, subjects of coercion and law. 
For example, if a person inflicts a sensation upon me by 
material means, whether tangible or otherwise, I cannot 
help that sensation ; I am so far the slave of that other, 
and have no means of resisting him but by force, which I 
would define to be material agency. But if another 
proposes an opinion to me, I am not bound to be of this 
opinion ; my judgment and will is left free, and therefore 
I have no right to resort to force to recover a liberty 
which I have not lost. If I do this to prevent that other 
from pressing that opinion, it is I who invade his liberty, 
without warrant, because without necessity. It may be 
urged that material agency, or force, is used in the adop- 



- 400 Project for a New Theory of 

tion of sounds or letters of the alphabet, which I cannot 
help seeing or hearing. But the injury is not here, but 
in the moral and artificial inference, which I am at 
liberty to admit or reject, according to the evidence. 
There is no force but argument in the case, and it is 
reason, not the will of another, that gives the law. 
Further, the opinion expressed, generally concerns not 
one individual, but the general interest ; and of that my 
approbation or disapprobation is not a commensurate or 
the sole judge. I am judge of my own interests, because 
it is my affair, and no one's else ; but by the same rule, 
I am not judge, nor have I a veto on that which appeals to 
all the world, merely because I have a prejudice or fancy 
against it. But suppose another expresses by signs or 
words a contempt for me ? Answer. I do not know that 
he is bound to have a respect for me. Opinion is free ; 
for if I wish him to have that respect, then he must be 
left free to judge for himself, and consequently to arrive 
at and to express the contrary opinion, or otherwise the 
verdict and testimony I aim at could not be obtained ; 
just as players must consent to be hissed, if they expect 
to be applauded. Opinion cannot be forced, for it is not 
grounded on force, but on evidence and reason, and there- 
fore these last are the proper instruments to control that 
opinion, and to make it favourable to what we wish, or 
hostile to what we disapprove. In what relates to action, 
the will of another is force, or the determining power : in 
what relates to opinion, the mere will or ipse dixit of 
another is of no avail but as it gains over other opinions 
to its side, and therefore neither needs nor admits of force 
as a counteracting means to be used against it. But in 
the case of calumny or indecency : 1. I would say that 
it is the suppression of truth that gives falsehood its 
worst edge. What transpires (however maliciously or 
secretly) in spite of the law, is taken for gospel, and as it 
is impossible to prevent calumny, so it is impossible to 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 401 

counteract it on the present system, or while every attempt 
to answer it is attributed to the people's not daring to 
speak the truth. If any single fact or accident peeps out, 
the whole character, having this legal screen before it, is 
supposed to be of a piece ; and the world, defrauded of 
the means of coming to their own conclusion, naturally 
infer the worst. Hence the saying, that reputation once 
gone never returns. If, however, we grant the general 
licence or liberty of the press, in a scheme where publicity 
is the great object, it seems a manifest contre-sens that the 
author should be the only thing screened or kept a secret : 
either, therefore, an anonymous libeller would be heard 
with contempt, or if he signed his name thus — , or thus 

, it would be equivalent to being branded publicly 

as a calumniator, or marked with the T. F. (travail force) 
or the broad E. (rogue) on his back. These are thought 
sufficient punishments, and yet they rest on opinion with- 
out stripes or labour. As to indecency, in proportion as 
it is flagrant is the shock and resentment against it ; and 
as vanity is the source of indecency, so the universal dis- 
countenance and shame is its most effectual antidote. If 
it is public, it produces immediate reprisals from public 
opinion which no brow can stand ; and if secret, it had 
better be left so. No one can then say it is obtruded on 
him ; and if he will go in search of it, it seems odd he 
should call upon the law to frustrate the object of his 
pursuit. Further, at the worst, society has its remedy in 
its own hands whenever its moral sense is outraged, that is, 
it may send to Coventry, or excommunicate like the church 
of old; for though it may have no right to prosecute, 
it is not bound to protect or patronise, unless by voluntary 
consent of all parties concerned. Secondly, as to rights 
of action, or personal liberty. These have no limit but 
the rights of persons or property aforesaid, or to be here- 
after named. They are the channels in which the others 
run without injury and without impediment, as a river 

2 D 



402 Project for a New Theory of 

within its banks. Every one has a right to use his 
natural powers in. the way most agreeable to himself, 
and which he deems most conducive to his own advantage, 
provided he does not interfere with the corresponding 
rights and liberties of others. He has no right to coerce 
them by a decision of his individual will, and as long as 
he abstains from this he has no right to be coerced by 
an expression of the aggregate will, that is, by law. 
The law is he emanation of the aggregate will, and this 
will receives its warrant to act only from the forcible 
pressure from without, and its indispensable resistance to 
it. Let us see how this will operate to the pruning and 
curtailment of law. The rage of legislation is the first 
vice of society ; it ends by limiting it to as few things as 
possible. 1. There can, according to the principle here 
imperfectly sketched, be no laws for the enforcement of 
morals ; because morals have to do with the will and 
affections, and the law only puts a restraint on these. 
Every one is politically constituted the judge of what is 
best for himself; it is only when he encroaches on others 
that he can be called to account. He has no right to say 
to others, You shall do as I do : how then should they 
have a right to say to him, You shall do as we do ? Mere 
numbers do not convoy the right, for the law addresses 
not one, but the. whole community. For example, there 
cannot rightly be a law to set a man in the stocks for 
getting drunk. It injures his health, you say. That is 
his concern, and not mine. But it is detrimental to his 
affairs : if so, he suffers most by it. But it is ruinous to 
his wife and family : he is their natural and legal 
guardian. But they are thrown upon the parish : the 
parish need not take the burden upon itself, unless it 
chooses or has agreed to do so. If a man is not kind to 
or fond of his wife I see no law to make him. If he beats 
her, or threatens her life, she as clearly has a right to call 
in the aid of a constable or justice of peace. I do not see, 



i 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 403 

in like manner, how there can be law against gambling 
(against cheating there may), nor against usury. A man 
gives twenty, forty, a hundred per cent, with his eyes open, 
but would he do it if strong necessity did not impel him '? 
Certainly no man would give double if he could get the 
same advantage for half. There are circumstances in 
which a rope to save me from drowning, or a draught of 
water, would be worth all I have. In like manner, 
lotteries are fair things; for the loss is inconsiderable, 
and the advantage may be incalculable. I do not believe 
the poor put into them, but the reduced rich, the shabby- 
genteel. Players were formerly prohibited as a nuisance, 
and fortune-tellers still are liable to the Vagrant Act, 
which the parson of the parish duly enforces, in his zeal 
to prevent cheating and imposture, while he himself has 
his two livings, and carries off a tenth of the produce of 
the soil. Eape is an offence clearly punishable by law ; 
but I would not say that simple incontinence is so. I 
will give one more example, which, though quaint, may 
explain the distinction I aim at. A man may commit 
suicide if he pleases, without being responsible to any 
one. He may quit the world as he would quit the country 
where he was born. But if any person were to fling 
himself from the gallery into the pit of a playhouse, so 
as to endanger the lives of others, if he did not succeed 
in killing himself, he would render himself liable to 
punishment for the attempt, if it were to be supposed 
that a person so desperately situated would care about 
consequences. Duelling is lawful on the same principle, 
where every precaution is taken to show that the act is 
voluntary and fair on both sides. I might give other 
instances, but these will suffice. 2. There should be a 
perfect toleration in matters of religion. In what relates 
to the salvation of a man's soul, he is infinitely more 
concerned than I can be; and to pretend to dictate to 
him in this particular is an infinite piece of impertinence 



404 Project for a Neiv Tlieory of 

and presumption. But if a man has no religion at all ? 
That does not hinder me from having any. If he stood 
at the church door and would not let me enter, I should 
have a right to push him aside ; but if he lets me pass by 
without interruption, I have no right to turn back and 
drag him in after me. He might as well force me to have 
no religion as I force him to have one, or burn me at a 
stake for believing what he does not. Opinion, " like the 
wild goose, flies unclaimed of any man :" heaven is like 
" the marble air, accessible to all ;" and therefore there is 
no occasion to trip up one another's heels on the road, or 
to erect a turnpike gate to collect large sums from the 
passengers. How have I a right to make another pay for 
the saving of my soul, or to assist me in damning his ? 
There should be no secular interference in sacred things ; 
no laws to suppress or establish any church or sect in 
religion, no religious persecutions, tests, or disqualifica- 
tions ; the different sects should be left to inveigle and 
hate each other as much as they please ; but without the 
love of exclusive domination and spiritual power there 
would be little temptation to bigotry and intolerance. 

3. As to the Eights of Property. It is of no use a 
man's being left to enjoy security, or to exercise his 
freedom of action, unless he has a right to appropriate 
certain other things necessary to his comfort and subsist- 
ence to his own use. In a state of nature, or rather of 
solitary independence, he has a right to all he can lay his 
hands on : what then limits this right ? Its being incon- 
sistent with the same right in others. This strikes a 
mathematical or logical balance between two extreme and 
equal pretensions. As there is not a natural and indis- 
soluble connection between the individual and his pro- 
perty, or those outward objects of which he may have 
need (they being detached, unlimited, and transferable), 
as there is between the individual and his person, either 
as an organ of sensation or action, it is necessary, in order 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 405 

to prevent endless debate and quarrels, to fix upon some 
other criterion or common ground of preference. Animals, 
or savages, have no idea of any other right than that of 
the strongest, and seize on all they can get by force, 
without any regard to justice or an equal claim. 1. One 
mode of settling the point is to divide the spoil. That is 
allowing an equal advantage to both. Thus boys, when 
they unexpectedly find anything, are accustomed to cry 
"Halves!" But this is liable to other difficulties, and 
applies only to the case of joint finding. 2. Priority of 
possession is a fair way of deciding the right of property ; 
first, on the mere principle of a lottery, or the old saying, 
"First come, first served;" secondly, because the expect- 
ation having been excited, and the will more set upon it, 
this constitutes a powerful reason for not violently forcing 
it to let go its hold. The greater strength of volition is, 
we have seen, one foundation of right ; for supposing a 
person to be absolutely indifferent to anything, he coulcl 
properly set up no claim to it. 3. Labour, or the having 
produced a thing or fitted it for use by previous exertion, 
gives this right, chiefly, indeed, for moral and final causes ; 
because if one enjoyed what another had produced, there 
would be nothing but idleness and rapacity ; but also in 
the sense we are inquiring into, because on a merely 
selfish ground the labour undergone, or the time lost, 
is entitled to an equivalent, cceteris manentibus. 4. If 
another, voluntarily, or for a consideration, resigns to me 
his right in anything, it to all intents and purposes 
becomes mine. This accounts not only for gifts, the 
transfer of property by bargains, &c, but for legacies, 
and the transmission of property in families or otherwise. 
It is hard to make a law to circumscribe this right cf 
disposing of what we have as we please ; yet the boasted 
law of primogeniture, which is professedly the bulwark 
and guardian of property, is in direct violation of this 
principle. 5, and lastly. Where a thing is common, and 



406 Project for a Neiv Theory of 

there is enough for all, and no one contributes to it, as 
air or water, there can be no property in it. The prox- 
imity to a herring-fishery, or the having been the first to 
establish a particular traffic in such commodities, may 
perhaps give this right by aggravating our will, as having 
a nearer or longer power over them ; but the rule is the 
other way. It is on the same principle that poaching is a 
kind of honest thieving, for that which costs no trouble 
and is confined to no limits seems to belong to no one 
exclusively (why else do poachers or country people 
seize on this kind of property with the least reluctance, 
but that it is the least like stealing ?) ; and as the game 
laws and the tenaciousness of the rights to that which has 
least the character of property, as most a point of honour, 
produced a revolution in one country, so they are not 
unlikely to produce it in another. The object and prin- 
ciple of the laws of property, then, is this : 1. To supply 
individuals and the community with what they need. 2. 
To secure an equal share to each individual, other cir- 
cumstances being the same. 3. To keep the peace and 
promote industry and plenty, by proportioning each man's 
share to his own exertions, or to the good- will and dis- 
cretion of others. The intention, then, being that no 
individual should rob another, or be starved but by his 
refusing to work (the earth and its produce being the 
natural estate of the community, subject to these regula- 
tions of individual right and public welfare), the question 
is, whether any individual can have a right to rob or 
starve the whole community : or if the necessary dis- 
cretion left in the application of the principle has led to a 
state of things subversive of the principle itself, and 
destructive to the welfare and existence of the state, 
whether the end being defeated, the law does not fall to 
the ground, or require either a powerful corrective or a 
total reconstruction. The end is superior to the means, 
and the use of a thing does not justify its abuse. If a 



Civil and Criminal Legislation. 407 

clock is quite out of order and always goes wrong, it is 
no argument to say it was set right at first and on true 
mechanical principles, and therefore it must go on as it 
has done, according to all the rules of art ; on the 
contrary, it is taken to pieces, repaired, and the whole 
restored to the original state, or, if this is impossible, a 
new one is made. So society, when out of order, which 
it is whenever the interests of the many are regularly and 
outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, must be 
repaired, and either a reform or a revolution cleanse its 
corruptions and renew its elasticity. People talk of the 
poor laws as a grievance. Either they or a national 
bankruptcy, or a revolution, are necessary. The labour- 
ing population have not doubled in the last forty years ; 
there are still no more than are necessary to do the work 
in husbandry, &c, that is indispensably required ; but the 
wages of a labouring man are no higher than they were 
forty years ago, and the price of food and necessaries is at 
least double what it was then, owing to taxes, grants, 
monopolies, and immense fortunes gathered during the 
war by the richer or more prosperous classes, who have not 
ceased to propagate in the geometrical ratio, though the poor 
have not done it, and the maintaining of whose younger 
and increasing branches in becoming splendour and affluence 
presses with double w r eight on the poor and labouring 
classes. The greater part of a community ought not to be 
paupers or starving ; and when a government by obstinacy 
and madness has reduced them to that state, it must either 
take wise and effectual measures to relieve them from it, 
or pay the forfeit of its own wickedness and folly. 

It seems, then, that a system of just and useful laws 
may be constructed nearly, if not wholly, on the principle 
of the right of self-defence, or the security for person, 
liberty, and property. There are exceptions, such, for 
instance, as in the case of children, idiots, and insane 
persons. These common- sense dictates for a general 
principle can only hold good where the general conditions 



408 On the Character of Burke. 

are complied with. There are also mixed cases, partaking 
of civil and moral justice. Is a man bound to support 
his children ? Not in strict political right ; but he may 
be compelled to forego all the benefits of civil society, if 
he does not fulfil an engagement which, according to the 
feelings and principles of that society, he has undertaken. 
So in respect to marriage. It is a voluntary contract, 
and the violation of it is punishable on the same plea of 
sympathy and custom. Government is not necessarily 
founded on common consent, but on the right which 
society has to defend itself against all aggression. But am I 
bound to pay or support the government for defending the 
society against any violence or injustice ? No : but then 
they may withdraw the protection of the law from me if 
I refuse, and it is on this ground that the contributions 
of each individual to the maintenance of the state are de- 
manded. Laws are, or ought to be, founded on the supposed 
infraction of individual rights. If these rights, and the 
best means of maintaining them, are always clear, and there 
could be no injustice or abuse of power on the part of the 
government, every government might be its own lawgiver : 
but as neither of these is the case, it is necessary to recur 
to the general voice for settling the boundaries of right 
and wrong, and even more for preventing the government, 
under pretence of the general peace and safety, from sub- 
jecting the whole liberties, rights, and resources of the 
community to its own advantage and sole will. 
1828. 



ESSAY XII. 

On the Character of Burke} 

There is no single speech of Mr. Burke which can con- 
vey a satisfactory idea of his powers of mind : to do him 

1 Compare Tlie Eloquence of the British Senate^ 1807, ii, 206-17, 
where this paper was originally printed. — Ed. 



On the Character of Burke. 409 

justice, it would be necessary to quote all his works ; the 
only specimen of Burke is, all that lie wrote. With respect 
to most other speakers, a specimen is generally enough, or 
more than enough. When you are acquainted with their 
manner, and see what proficiency they have made in the 
mechanical exercise of their profession, with what facility 
they can borrow a simile, or round a period, how dexter- 
ously they can argue, and object, and rejoin, you are 
satisfied; there is no other difference in their speeches 
than what arises from the difference of the subjects. But 
this was not the case with Burke. He brought his 
subjects along with him; he drew his materials from 
himself. The only limits which circumscribed his va- 
riety were the stores of his own mind. His stock of ideas 
did not consist of a few meagre facts, meagrely stated, of 
half a dozen commonplaces tortured into a thousand 
different ways; but his mine of wealth was a profound 
understanding, inexhaustible as the human heart, and 
various as the sources of human nature. He therefore 
enriched every subject to which he applied himself, and 
new subjects were only the occasions of calling forth fresh 
powers of mind which had not been before exerted. It 
would therefore be in vain to look for the proof of his 
powers in any one of his speeches or writings : they all 
contain some additional proof of power. In speaking of 
Burke, then, I shall speak of the whole compass and 
circuit of his mind — not of that small part or section of 
him which I have been able to give : to do otherwise 
would be like the story of the man who put the brick in 
his pocket, thinking to show it as the model of a house. 
I have been able to manage pretty well with respect to all 
my other speakers, and curtailed them down without 
remorse. It was easy to reduce them within certain 
limits, to fx their spirit, and condense their variety ; 
by having a certain quantity given, you might infer all 
the rest ; it was only the same thing over again. But 



410 On the Character of BurJce. 

who can bind Proteus, or confine the roving flight of 
genius ? 

Burke's writings are better than his speeches, and 
indeed his speeches are writings. But he seemed to 
feel himself more at ease, to have a fuller possession of 
his faculties in addressing the public, than in addressing 
the House of Commons. Burke was raised into public 
life ; and he seems to have been prouder of this new 
dignity than became so great a man. For this reason, 
most of his speeches have a sort of parliamentary preamble 
to them : he seems fond of coquetting with the House of 
Commons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker out to 
dance a minuet with him before he begins. There is also 
something like an attempt to stimulate the superficial 
dulness of his hearers by exciting their surprise, by 
running into extravagance : and he sometimes demeans 
himself by condescending to what may be considered as 
bordering too much upon buffoonery, for the amusement 
of the company. Those lines of Milton were admirably 
applied to him by some one — " The elephant to make 
them sport wreathed his proboscis lithe." The truth 
is, that he was out of his place in the House of Com- 
mons ; he was eminently qualified to shine as a man of 
genius, as the instructor of mankind, as the brightest 
luminary of his age ; but he had nothing in common 
with that motley crew of knights, citizens, and burgesses. 
He could not be said to be " native and endued unto that 
element." He was above it ; and never appeared like 
himself, but when, forgetful of the idle clamours of party, 
and of the little views of little men, he applied to 
his country and the enlightened judgment of mankind. 

I am not going to make an idle panegyric on Burke (he 
has no need of it) ; but I cannot help looking upon him as 
the chief boast and ornament of the English House of 
Commons. What has been said of him is, I think, strictly 
true, that " he was the most eloquent man of his time : 



On the Character of Burke. 411 

his wisdom was greater than his eloquence." The only 
public man that in my opinion can be put in any compe- 
tition with him, is Lord Chatham ; and he moved in a 
sphere so very remote, that it is almost impossible to 
compare them. But though it would perhaps be difficult 
to determine which of them excelled most in his particular 
way, there is nothing in the world more easy than to 
point out in what their peculiar excellences consisted. They 
were in every respect the reverse of each other. Chatham's 
eloquence was popular ; his wisdom was altogether plain 
and practical. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet ; of 
the man of high and unbounded fancy : his wisdom was 
profound and contemplative. Chatham's eloquence was 
calculated to make men act: Burke's was calculated to 
make them think. Chatham could have roused the fury of 
a multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he 
pleased : Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the 
mind of the retired and lonely student, opened the re- 
cesses of the human breast, and lighted up the face of 
nature around him. Chatham supplied his hearers with 
motives to immediate action : Burke furnished them with 
reasons for action which might have little effect upon 
them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser 
and better all their lives after. In research, in originality 
in variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth 
and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the 
advantage of Lord Chatham as he was excelled by him in 
plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of 
purpose, in vehemence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and 
energy of mind. Burke was the man of genius, of fine 
sense, and subtle reasoning ; Chatham was a man of clear 
understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions. 
Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation : Chatham's 
was essentially active ; it could not resj without an object. 
The power which governed Burke's mind was his Imagi- 
nation ; that which gave its impetus to Chatham was Will. 



412 On the Character of Burke. 

The one was almost the creature of pure intellect, the 
other of physical temperament. 

There are two very different ends which a man of genius 
may propose to himself, either in writing or speaking, and 
which will accordingly give birth to very different styles. 
He can have but one of these two objects ; either to enrich 
or strengthen the mind ; either to furnish us with new 
ideas, to lead the mind into new trains of thought, to 
which it was before unused, and which it was incapable of 
striking out for itself ; or else to collect and embody what 
we already knew, to rivet our old impressions more deeply ; 
to make w r hat was before plain still plainer, and to give to 
that which was familiar all the effect of novelty. In the 
one case we receive an accession to the stock of our ideas ; 
in the other, an additional degree of life and energy is 
infused into them : our thoughts continue to flow in the 
same channels, but their pulse is quickened and invi- 
gorated. I do not know how to distinguish these differ- 
ent styles better than by calling them severally the 
inventive and refined, or the impressive and vigorous 
styles. It is only the subject-matter of eloquence, how- 
ever, which is allowed to be remote or obscure. The 
things themselves may be subtle and recondite, but they 
must be dragged out of their obscurity and brought 
struggling to the light ; they must be rendered plain and 
palpable (as far as it is in the wit of man to do so), or 
they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural 
impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark 
and difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which 
the imagination can shed no lustre, which can be clothed 
with no beauty, is not a subject for the orator or poet. At 
the same time it cannot be expected that abstract truths or 
profound observations should ever be placed in the same 
strong and dazzling points of view as natural objects and 
mere matters of fact. It is enough if they receive a reflex 
and borrowed lustre, like that which cheers the first dawn 



On the Character of Burke. 413 

of morning, where the effect of surprise and novelty gilds 
every object, and the joy of beholding another world 
gradually emerging out of the gloom of night, " a new 
creation rescued from his reign," fills the mind with a 
sober rapture. Philosophical eloquence is in writing what 
chiaroscuro is in painting ; he would be a fool who should 
object that the colours in the shaded part of a picture 
were not so bright as those on the opposite side ; the eye 
of the connoisseur receives an equal delight from both, 
balancing the want of brilliancy and effect with the greater 
delicacy of the tints, and difficulty of the execution. In 
judging of Burke, therefore, we are to consider, first, the 
style of eloquence which he adopted, and, secondly, the 
effects which he produced with it. If he did not produce 
the same effects on vulgar minds as some others have done, 
it was not for want of power, but from the turn and 
direction of his mind. 1 It was because his subjects, his 
ideas, his arguments, were less vulgar. The question is 
not whether he brought certain truths equally home to us, 
but how much nearer he brought them than they were 
before. In my opinion, he united the two extremes of 
refinement and strength in a higher degree than any other 
writer whatever. 

The subtlety of his mind was undoubtedly that which 
rendered Burke a less popular writer and speaker than he 
otherwise would have been. It weakened the impression 
of his observations upon others, but I cannot admit that it 
weakened the observations themselves ; that it took any- 
thing from their real weight or solidity. Coarse minds 
think all that is subtle, futile : that because it is not gross 
and obvious and palpable to the senses, it is therefore 
light and frivolous, and of no importance in the real 
affairs of life ; thus making their own confined under- 
standings the measure of truth, and supposing that what- 

1 For instance, he produced less effect on the mob that compose 
the English House of Commons, than Chatham or Fox, or even Pitt. 



414 On the Character of Burke. 

ever they do not distinctly perceive, is nothing. Seneca, 
who was not one of the vulgar, also says, that subtle 
truths are those which have the least substance in them, 
and consequently approach nearest to nonentity. But for 
my own part I cannot help thinking that the most impor- 
tant truths must be the most refined and subtle ; for that 
very reason, that they must comprehend a great number 
of particulars, and instead of referring to any distinct or 
positive fact, must point out the combined effects of an 
extensive chain of causes, operating gradually, remotely, 
and collectively, and therefore imperceptibly. General 
principles are not the less true or important because from 
their nature they elude immediate observation ; they are 
like the air, which is not the less necessary because we 
neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which 
binds the world together, and holds the planets in their 
orbits. The very same persons who are the most forward 
to laugh at all systematic reasoning as idle and impertinent, 
you will the next moment hear exclaiming bitterly against 
the baleful effects of new-fangled systems of philosophy, 
or gravely descanting on the immense importance of 
instilling sound principles of morality into the mind. It 
would not be a bold conjecture, but an obvious truism, to 
say, that all the great changes which have been brought 
about in the mortal world, either for the better or worse, 
have been introduced, not by the bare statement of facts, 
which are things already known, and which must always 
operate nearly in the same mannner, but by the develop- 
ment of certain opinions and abstract principles of 
reasoning on life and manners, on the origin of society 
and man's nature in general, which being obscure and un- 
certain, vary from time to time, and produce correspond- 
ing changes/ in the human mind. They are the wholesome 
clew and rain, or the mildew and pestilence that silently 
destroy. To this principle of generalisation all wise law- 
givers, and the systems of philosophers, owe their influence. 



On the Character of Burke. 415 

It lias always been with me a test of the sense and can- 
dour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether 
he allowed Burke to be a great man. Of all the persons 
of this description that I have ever known, I never met 
with above one or two who would make this concession ; 
whether it was that party feelings ran too high to admit of 
any real candour, or whether it was owing to an essential 
vulgarity in their habits of thinking, they all seemed to be 
of opinion that he was a wild enthusiast, or a hollow 
sophist, who was to be answered by bits of facts, by smart 
logic, by shrewd questions, and idle songs. They looked 
upon him as a man of disordered intellects, because he 
reasoned in a style to which they had not been used, and 
which confounded their dim perceptions. If you said that 
though you differed with him in sentiment, yet you 
thought him an admirable reasoner, and a close observer 
of human nature, you were answered with a loud laugh, 
and some hackneyed quotation. " Alas ! Leviathan was 
not so tamed ! " They did not know whom they had to 
contend with. The corner-stone, which the builders 
rejected, became the head-corner, though to the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness ; for, indeed, 
I cannot discover 'that he was much better understood by 
those of his own party, if we may judge from the little 
affinity there is between his mode of reasoning and theirs. 
The simple clue to all his reasonings on politics is, I 
think, as follows. He did not agree with some writers 
that that mode of government is necessarily the best which 
is the cheapest. He saw in the construction of society 
other principles at work, and other capacities of fulfilling 
the desires, and perfecting the nature of man, besides those 
of securing the equal enjoyment of the means of animal 
life, and doing this at as little expense as possible. He 
thought that the wants and happiness of men were not to 
be provided for, as we provide for those of a herd of cattle, 
merely by attending to their physical necessities. He 






416 On the Character of Burke. 

thought more nobly of his fellows. He knew that man 
had affections and passions and powers of imagination, as 
well as hunger and thirst, and the sense of heat and cold 
He took his idea of political society from the pattern of 
private life, wishing, as he himself expresses it, to in- 
corporate the domestic charities with the orders of the 
state, and to blend them together. He strove to establish 
an analogy between the compact that binds together the 
community at large, and that which binds together the 
several families that compose it. He knew that the rules 
that form the basis of private morality are not founded in 
reason, that is, in the abstract properties of those things 
which are the subjects of them, but in the nature of man, 
and his capacity of being affected by certain things from 
habit, from imagination, and sentiment, as well as from 
reason. 

Thus, the reason why a man ought to be attached to his 
wife and children is not, surely, that they are better than 
others (for in this case every one else ought to be of the 
same opinion), but because he must be chiefly interested in 
those things which are nearest to him, and with which he 
is best acquainted, since his understanding cannot reach 
equally to everything ; because he must be most attached 
to those objects which he has known the longest, and 
which by their situation have actually affected him the 
most, not those which in themselves are the most affecting 
whether they have ever made any impression on him or 
no ; that is, because he is by his nature the creature of 
habit and feeling, and because it is reasonable that he 
should act in conformity to his nature. Burke was so far 
right in saying that it is no objection to an institution 
that it is founded in prejudice, but the contrary, if that 
prejudice is natural and right ; that is, if it arises from 
those circumstances which are properly subjects of feeling 
and association, not from any defect or perversion of the 
understanding in those things which fall strictly under its 



On the Character of Burke. "ill 

jurisdiction. On this profound maxim he took his stand. 
Thus he contended, that the prejudice in favour of nobility 
was natural and proper, and fit to be encouraged by the 
positive institutions of society : not on account of the real 
or personal merit of the individuals, but because such an 
institution has a tendency to enlarge and raise the mind, 
to keep alive the memory of past greatness, to connect the 
different ages of the world together, to carry back the 
imagination over a long tract of time, and feed it with the 
contemplation of remote events : because it is natural to , 
think highly of that which inspires us with high thoughts, 
which has been connected for many generations with 
splendour, and affluence, and dignity, and power, and 
privilege. He also conceived, that by transferring the 
respect from the person to the thing, and thus rendering 
it steady and permanent, the mind would be habitually 
formed to sentiments of deference, attachment, and fealty, 
to whatever else demanded its respect : that it would be 
led to fix its view on what was elevated and lofty, and be 
weaned from that low and narrow jealousy which never 
willingly or heartily admits of any superiority in others, 
and is glad of every opportunity to bring down all excel- 
lence to a level with its own miserable standard. Nobility 
did not, therefore, exist to the prejudice of the other 
orders of the state, but by, and for them. The inequality 
of the different orders of society did not destroy the unity 
and harmony of the whole. The health and well-being of 
the moral world was to be promoted by the same means as 
the beauty of the natural world ; by contrast, by change, 
by light and shade, by variety of parts, by order and 
proportion. To think of reducing all mankind to the 
same insipid level, seemed to him the same absurdity as to 
destroy the inequalities of surface in a country, for the 
benefit of agriculture and commerce. In short, he believed 
that the interests of men in society should be consulted, 
and their several stations and employments assigned, with 



418 On the Character of Burke. 

a view to their nature, not as physical, but as moral beings, 
so as to nourish their hopes, to lift their imagination, to 
enliven their fancy, to rouse their activity, to strengthen 
their virtue, and to furnish the greatest number of objects 
of pursuit and means of enjoyment to beings constituted as 
man is, consistently with the order and stability of the 
whole. 

The same reasoning might be extended farther. I do not 
say that his arguments are conclusive : but they are pro- 
found and true, as far as they go. There may be dis- 
advantages and abuses necessarily interwoven with his 
scheme, or opposite advantages of infinitely greater value, 
to be derived from another order of things and state of 
society. This, however, does not invalidate either the 
truth or importance of Burke's reasoning ; since the advan- 
tages he points out as connected with the mixed form of 
government are really and necessarily inherent in it : 
since they are compatible, in the same degree, with no 
other ; since the principle itself on which he rests his 
argument (whatever we may think of the application) is 
of the utmost weight and moment; and since, on which- 
ever side the truth lies, it is impossible to make a fair 
decision without having the opposite side of the question 
clearly and fully stated to us. This Buike has done in a 
masterly manner. He presents to you one view or face of 
society. Let him who thinks he can, give the reverse side 
with equal force, beauty, and clearness. It is said, I know, 
that truth is one; but to this I cannot subscribe, for it 
appears to me that truth is many. There are as many 
truths as there are things and causes of action and con- 
tradictory principles at work in society. In making up 
the account of good and evil, indeed, the final result must 
be one way or the other ; but the particulars on which 
that result depends are infinite and various. 

It will be seen from what 1 have said, that I am very 
far from agreeing with those who think that Burke was a 






On the Character of Burlce. 419 

man without understanding, and a merely florid writer. 
There are two causes which have given rise to this 
calumny ; namely, that narrowness of mind which leads 
men to suppose that the truth lies entirely on the side of 
their own opinions, and that whatever does not make for 
them is absurd and irrational ; secondly, a trick we have 
of confounding reason with judgment, and supposing that 
it is merely the province of the understanding to pronounce 
sentence, and not to give evidence, or argue the case ; in 
short, that it is a passive, not an active faculty. Thus 
there are persons who never run into any extravagance, 
because they are so buttressed up with the opinions of 
others on all sides, that they cannot lean much to one side 
or the other ; they are so little moved with any kind of 
reasoning, that they remain at an equal distance from 
every extreme, and are never very far from the truth, 
because the slowness of their faculties will not suffer 
them to make much progress in error. These are persons 
of great judgment. The scales of the mind are pretty 
sure to remain even, when there is nothing in them. In 
this sense of the word, Burke must be allowed to have 
wanted judgment, by all those who think that he was 
wrong in his conclusions. The accusation of want of 
judgment, in fact, only means that you yourself are of a 
different opinion. But if in arriving at one error he dis- 
covered a hundred truths, I should consider myself a 
hundred times more indebted to him than if, stumbling on 
that which I consider as the right side of the question, he 
had committed a hundred absurdities in striving to esta- 
blish his point. I speak of him now merely as an author, 
or as far as I and other readers are concerned with him ; 
at the same time, I should not differ from any one who 
may be disposed to contend that the consequences of his 
writings as instruments of political power have been tre- 
mendous, fatal, such as no exertion of wit or knowledge 
or genius can ever counteract or atone for. 



420 On the Character of Burke. 

Burke also gave a hold to his antagonists by mixing up 
sentiment and imagery with his reasoning ; so that being 
unused to such a sight in the region of politics, they were 
deceived, and could not discern the fruit from the flowers. 
Gravity is the cloak of wisdom; and those who have 
nothing else think it an insult to affect the one without 
the other, because it destroys the only foundation on 
which their pretensions are built. The easiest part of 
reason is dulness ; the generality of the world are there- 
fore concerned in discouraging any example of unnecessary 
brilliancy that might tend to show that the two things 
do not always go together. Burke in some measure 
dissolved the spell. It was discovered, that his gold was 
not the less valuable for being wrought into elegant 
shapes, and richly embossed with curious figures; that 
the solidity of a building is not destroyed by adding to it 
beauty and ornament ; and that the strength of a man's 
understanding is not always to be estimated in exact 
proportion to his want of imagination. His understanding 
was not the less real, because it was not the only faculty 
he possessed. He justified the description of the poet— 

" How charming is divine philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute !" 

Those who object to this union of grace and beauty with 
reason, are in fact weak-sighted people, who cannot dis- 
tinguish the noble and majestic form of Truth from that 
of her sister Folly, if they are dressed both alike ! But 
there is always a difference even in the adventitious orna- 
ments they wear, which is sufficient to distinguish them. 
Burke was so far from being a gaudy or flowery writer, 
that he was one of the severest writers we have. His 
words are the most like things; his style is the most 
strictly suited to the subject. He unites every extreme - 
and every variety of composition* the lowest and the 






On the Character of Burke. 421 

meanest words and descriptions with the highest. He 
exults in the display of power, in showing the extent, the 
force, and intensity of his ideas; he is led on by the mere 
impulse and vehemence of his fancy, not by the affectation 
of dazzling his readers by gaudy conceits or pompous 
images. He was completely carried away by his subject. 
He had no other object but to produce the strongest 
impression on his reader, by giving the truest, the most 
characteristic, the fullest, and most forcible description of 
things, trusting to the power of his own mind to mould 
them into grace and beauty. He did not produce a 
splendid effect by setting fire to the light vapours that 
float in the regions of fancy, as the chemists make fine 
colours with phosphorus, but by the eagerness of his 
blows struck fire from the flint, and melted the hardest 
substances in the furnace of his imagination. The wheels 
of his imagination did not catch fire from the rottenness 
of the materials, but from the rapidity of their motion. 
One would suppose, to hear people talk of Burke, that his 
style was such as would have suited the Lady's Magazine; 
soft, smooth, showy, tender, insipid, full of fine words, 
without any meaning. The essence of the gaudy or 
glittering style consists in producing a momentary effect 
by fine words and images brought together, without order 
or connection. Burke most frequently produced an effect 
by the remoteness and novelty of his combinations, by the 
force of contrast, by the striking manner in which the 
most opposite and unpromising materials were harmo- 
niously blended together ; not by laying his hands on all 
the fine things he could think of, but by bringing together 
those things which he knew would blaze out into glorious 
light by their collision. The florid style is a mixture of 
affectation and commonplace. Burke's was an union of 
un tameable vigour and originality. 

Burke was not a verbose writer. If he sometimes 
multiplies words, it is not for want of ideas, but because 



422 On the Character of Burke. 

there are no words that fully express his ideas, and he 
tries to do it as well as he can by different ones. He had 
nothing of the set or formal style, the measured cadence, 
and stately phraseology of Johnson, and most of our 
modern writers. This style, which is what we understand 
by the artificial, is all in one key. It selects a certain set 
of words to represent all ideas whatever, as the most 
dignified and elegant, and excludes all others as low and 
vulgar. The words are not fitted to the things, but the 
things to the words. Everything is seen through a false 
medium. It is putting a mask on the face of nature, 
which may indeed hide some specks and blemishes, but 
takes away all beauty, delicacy, and variety. It destroys 
all dignity or elevation, because nothing can be raised 
where all is on a level, and completely destroys all force, 
expression, truth, and character, by arbitrarily confound- 
ing the differences of things, and reducing everything to 
the same insipid standard. To suppose that this stiff 
uniformity can add anything to real grace or dignity, is 
like supposing that the human body, in order to be 
perfectly graceful, should never deviate from its upright 
posture. Another mischief of this method is, that it 
confounds all ranks in literature. Where there is no 
room for variety, no discrimination, no nicety to be shown 
in matching the idea with its proper word, there can be 
no room for taste or elegance. A man must easily learn 
the art of writing, when every sentence is to be cast in 
the same mould : where he is only allowed the use of one 
word he cannot choose wrong, nor will he be in much 
danger of making himself ridiculous by affectation or false 
glitter, when, whatever subject he treats of, he must treat 
of it in the same way. This indeed is to wear golden f 
chains for the sake of ornament. 

Burke was altogether free from the pedantry which I 
have here endeavoured to expose. His style was as 
original, as expressive, as rich and varied, as it was 






On the Character of Burke, 423 

possible ; his combinations were as exquisite, as playful, 
as happy, as unexpected, as bold and daring, as his fancy. 
If anything, he ran into the opposite extreme of too great 
an inequality, if truth and nature could ever be carried to 
an extreme. 

Those who are best acquainted with the writings and 
speeches of Burke will not think the praise I have here 
bestowed on them exaggerated. Some proof will be 
found of this in the following extracts. But the full 
proof must be sought in his works at large, and par- 
ticularly in the Thoughts on the Discontents ; in his Reflec- 
tions on the French Revolution ; in his Letter to the Duke of 
Bedford; and in the Regicide Peace. The two last of 
these are perhaps the most remarkable of all his writings, 
from the contrast they afford to each other. The one is 
the most delightful exhibition of wild and brilliant fancy 
that is to be found in English prose, but it is too much 
like a beautiful picture painted upon gauze ; it wants 
something to support it : the other is without ornament, 
but it has all the solidity, the weight, the gravity of a 
judicial record. It seems to have been written with a 
certain constraint upon himself, and to show those who 
said he could not reason, that his arguments might be 
stripped of their ornaments without losing anything of 
their force. It is certainly, of all his works, that in 
which he has shown most power of logical deduction, and 
the only one in which he has made any important use of 
facts. In general he certainly paid little attention to 
them : they were the playthings of his mind. He saw 
them as he pleased, not as they were ; with the eye of the 
philosopher or the poet, regarding them only in their 
general principle, or as they might serve to decorate his 
subject. This is the natural consequence of much imagi- 
nation : things that are probable are elevated into the 
rank of realities. To those who can reason on the 
essences of things, or who can invent according to nature, 



424 On the Character of Burke. 

the experimental proof is of little value. This was the 
case with Burke. In the present instance, however, he 
seems to have forced his mind into the service of facts ; 
and he succeeded completely. His comparison between 
our connection with France or Algiers, and his account of 
the conduct of the war, are as clear, as convincing, as 
forcible examples of this kind of reasoning, as are any- 
where to be met with. Indeed I do not think there is 
anything in Fox (whose mind was purely historical), or in 
Chatham (who attended to feelings more than facts), that 
will bear a comparison with them. 

Burke has been compared to Cicero — I do not know for 
what reason. Their excellences are as different, and 
indeed as opposite, as they can well be. Burke had not 
the polished elegance, the glossy neatness, the artful 
regularity, the exquisite modulation of Cicero : he had a 
thousand times more richness and originality of mind, 
more strength and pomp of diction. 

It has been well observed, that the ancients had no 
word that properly expresses what we mean by the word 
genius. They perhaps had not the thing. Their minds 
appear to have been too exact, too retentive, too minute 
and subtle, too sensible to the external differences of 
things, too passive under their impressions, to admit of 
those bold and rapid combinations, those lofty flights of 
fancy, which, glancing from heaven to earth, unite the 
most opposite extremes, and draw the happiest illus- 
trations frcm things the most remote. Their ideas were 
kept too confined and distinct by the material form or 
vehicle in which they were conveyed, to unite cordially 
together, or be melted down in the imagination. Their 
metaphors are taken from things of the same class, not 
from things of different classes ; the general analogy, 
not the individual feeling, directs them in their choice. 
Hence, as Dr. Johnson observed, their similes are either 
repetitions of the same idea, or so obvious and general as 



On the -Character of Burke. 425 

not to lend any additional force to it ; as when a huntress 
is compared to Diana, or a warrior rushing into battle to 
a lion rushing on his prey. Their forte was exquisite art 
and perfect imitation. Witness their statues and other 
things of the same kind. But they had not that high and 
enthusiastic fancy which some of our own writers have 
shown. For the proof of this, let any one compare 
Milton and Shakspeare with Homer and Sophocles, or 
Burke with Cicero. 

It may be asked whether Burke was a poet. He was so 
only in the general vividness of his fancy, and in richness 
of invention. There may be poetical passages in his 
works, but I certainly think that his writings in general 
are quite distinct from poetry; and that for the reason 
before given, namely, that the subject-matter of them is 
not poetical. The finest part of them are illustrations or 
personifications of dry abstract ideas; 1 and the union 
between the idea and the illustration is not of that perfect 
and pleasing kind as to constitute poetry, or indeed to be 
admissible, but for the effect intended to be produced by 
it ; that is, by every means in our power to give animation 
and attraction to subjects in themselves barren of orna- 
ment, but which at the same time are pregnant with the 
most important consequences, and in which the under- 
standing and the passions are equally interested. 

I have heard it remarked by a person, to whose opinion 
I would sooner submit than to a general council of critics, 
that the sound of Burke's prose is not musical; that it 
wants cadence ; and that instead of being so lavish of his 
imagery as is generally supposed, he seemed to him to be 
rather parsimonious in the use of it, always expanding 
and making the most of his ideas. This may be true if 
we compare him with some of our poets, or perhaps with 
some of our early prose writers, but not if we compare 

1 As in the comparison of the British Constitution to the " proud 
keep of Windsor," &c., the most splendid passage in his works. 



426 On the Character of Fox. 



him with any of our political writers or parliaments 
speakers. There are some very fine things of Lord 
Bolingbroke's on the same subjects, but not equal to 
Burke's. As for Junius, he is at the head of his class ; 
but that class is not the highest. He has been said to 
have more dignity than Burke. Yes — if the stalk of a 
giant is less dignified than the strut of a petit-maitre. I 
do not mean to speak disrespectfully of Junius, but 
grandeur is not the character of his composition; and 
if it is not to be found in Burke, it is to be found 
nowhere. 



. 



essay xin. 

On the Character of Fox. 1 
I shall begin with observing generally, that Mr. Fox 
excelled all his contemporaries in the extent of his know- 
ledge, in the clearness and distinctness of his views, in 
quickness of apprehension, in plain practical common 
sense, in the full, strong, and absolute possession of his 
subject. A measure was no sooner proposed than he 
seemed to have an instantaneous and intuitive perception 
of its various bearings and consequences ; of the manner 
in which it would operate on the different classes of society, 
on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic or foreign 
policy; of the difficulties attending its execution; in a 
word, of all its practical results, and the comparative 
advantages to be gained either by adopting or rejecting it. 
He was intimately acquainted with the interests of the 
different parts of the community, with the minute and 
complicated details of political economy, with our external 
relations, with the views, the resources, and the maxims 
of other states. He was master of all those facts and cir- 
cumstances which it was necessary to know in order to 
1 Keprinted from the Eloquence of the British Senate, 1807, ii, 
466-74.— Ed. 



On the Character of Fox. 427 

judge fairly and determine wisely ; and lie knew them not 
loosely or lightly, but in number, weight, and measure. 
He had also stored his memory by reading and general 
study, and improved his understanding by the lamp of 
history. He was well acquainted with the opinions and 
sentiments of the best authors, with the maxims of the 
most profound politicians, with the causes of the rise and 
fall of states, with the general passions of men, with the 
characters of different nations, and the laws and con- 
stitution of his own country. He was a man of large, 
capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated intellect. No 
man could know more than he knew ; no man's knowledge 
could be more sound, more plain and useful ; no man's 
knowledge could lie in more connected and tangible 
masses ; no man could be more perfectly master of his ideas 
could reason upon them more closely, or decide upon 
them more impartially. His mind was full, even to over- 
flowing. He was so habitually conversant with the most 
intricate and comprehensive trains of thought, or such was 
the natural vigour and exuberance of his mind, that he 
seemed to re call them without any effort. His ideas 
quarrelled for utterance. So far from ever being at a 
loss for them, he was obliged rather to repress and rein 
them in, lest they should overwhelm and confound, instead 
of informing the understandings of his hearers. 

If to this we add the ardour and natural impetuosity of 
his mind, his quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence 
of truth, and his impatience of everything that looked like 
trick or artifice or affectation, we shall be able in some 
measure to account for the character of his eloquence. 
His thoughts came crowding in too fast for the slow and 
mechanical process of speech. What he saw in an instant, 
he could only express imperfectly, word by word, and sen- 
tence after sentence. He would, if he could, " have bared 
his swelling heart," and laid open at once the rich treasures 
of knowledge with which his bosom was fraught. It is no 



428 On the Character of Fox. 

wonder that this difference between the rapidity of his 
feelings, and the formal round-about method of com- 
municating them, should produce some disorder in his 
frame ; that the throng of his ideas should try to overleap 
the narrow boundaries which confined them, and tumul- 
tuously break down their prison-doors, instead of waiting 
to be let out one by one, and following patiently at due 
intervals and with mock diginity, like poor dependents, 
in the train of words ; that he should express himself in 
hurried sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by ve- 
hement gestures, by sudden starts and bursts of passion. 
Everything showed the agitation of his mind. His tongue 
faltered, his voice became a] most suffocated, and his face 
was bathed in tears. He was lost in the magnitude of his 
subject. He reeled and staggered under the load of feel- 
ing which oppressed him. He rolled like the sea beaten 
by a tempest. Whoever, having the feelings of a man, 
compared him at these times with his boasted rival 
— his stiff, straight, upright figure, his gradual contortions, 
turning round as if moved by a pivot, his solemn pauses, 
his deep tones, " whose sound reverbed their own hollo w- 
ness," must have said, This is a man ; that is an automaton. 
If Fox had needed grace, he would have had it ; but it was 
not the character of his mind, nor would it have suited 
with the style of his eloquence. It was Pitt's object to 
smooth over the abruptness and intricacies of his argument 
by the gracefulness of his manner, and to fix the attention 
of his hearers on the pomp and sound of his words. Lord 
Chatham, again, strove to command others ; he did not try 
to convince them, but to overpower their understandings 
by the greater strength and vehemence of his own ; to awe 
them by a sense of personal superiority : and he therefore 
was obliged to assume a lofty and dignified manner. It 
was to him they bowed, not to truth ; and whatever related 
to himself, must therefore have a tendency to inspire 
respect and admiration. Indeed, he would never have at- 



On the Character of Fox. 429 

tempted to gain that ascendant over men's minds that he 
did, if either his mind or body had been different from 
what they were ; if his temper had not urged him to con- 
trol and command others, or if his personal advantages 
had not enabled him to secure that kind of authority 
which he coveted. But it would have been ridiculous in 
Fox to have affected either the smooth plausibility, the 
stately gravity of the one, or the proud domineering, 
imposing dignity of the other ; or even if he could have 
succeeded, it would only have injured the effect of his 
speeches. 1 What he had to rely on was the strength, the 
solidity of his ideas, his complete and thorough knowledge 
of his subject. It was his business therefore to fix the 
attention of his hearers, not on himself, but on his subject ; 
to rivet it there, to hurry it on from words to things : — 
the only circumstance of which they required to be con- 
vinced with respect to himself, was the sincerity of his 
opinions ; and this would be best done by the earnestness 
of his manner, by giving a loose to his feelings, and by 
showing the most perfect forgetfulness of himself, and of 
what others thought of him. The moment a man shows 
you either by affected words or looks or gestures, that he 
is thinking of himself, and you, that he is trying either to 
please or terrify you into compliance, there is an end at 
once to that kind of eloquence which owes its effect to the 
force of truth, and to your confidence in the sincerity of 
the speaker. It was, however, to the confidence inspired 
by the earnestness and simplicity of his manner, that 

1 There is an admirable, judicious, and truly useful remark in 
the preface to Spenser (not by Dr. Johnson, for he left Spenser out 
of his poets, but by one Upton), that the question was not whether 
a better poem might not have been written on a different plan, but 
whether Spenser would have written a better one on a different 
plan. I wish to apply this to Fox's ungainly manner. I do not 
mean to say, that his manner was the best possible (for that would 
be to say that he was the greatest man conceivable), but that it 
was the best for hiin. 



430 On the Character of Fox. 

Mr. Fox was indebted for more than half the effect of his 
speeches. Some others might possess nearly as much in- 
formation, as exact a knowledge of the situation and 
interests of the country ; but they wanted that zeal, that 
animation, that enthusiasm, that deep sense of the im- 
portance of the subject, which removes all doubt or 
suspicion from the minds of the hearers, and communicates 
its own warmth to every breast. We* may convince by 
argument alone ; but it is by the interest we discover in 
the success of our reasonings, that we persuade others to 
feel and act with us. There are two circumstances which 
Fox's speeches and Lord Chatham's had in common : they 
are alike distinguished by a kind of plain downright 
common sense, and by the vehemence of their manner. 
But still there is a great difference between them, in both 
these respects. Fox in his opinions was governed by facts — 
Chatham was more influenced by the feelings of others 
respecting those facts. Fox endeavoured to find out what 
the consequences of any measure would be ; Chatham at- 
tended more to what people would think of it. Fox 
appealed to the practical reason of mankind ; Chatham to 
popular prejudice. The one repelled the encroachments 
of power by supplying his hearers with arguments against 
it; the other by rousing their passions and arming their 
resentment against those who would rob them of their birth- 
right. Their vehemence and impetuosity arose also from 
very different feelings. In Chatham it was pride, passion, 
self-will, impatience of control, a determination to have 
his own way, to carry everything before him ; in Fox it 
was pure, good nature, a sincere love of truth, an ardent 
attachment to what he conceived to be right ; an anxious 
concern for the welfare and liberties of mankind. Or if 
we suppose that ambition had taken a strong hold of both 
their minds, yet their ambition was of a very different 
kind : in the one it was the love of power, in the other it 
was the love of fame. Nothing can be more opposite than 









On the Character of Fox. 431 

these two principles, both in their origin and tendency. 
The one originates in a selfish, haughty, domineering 
spirit ; the other in a social and generous sensibility, 
desirous of the love and esteem of others, and anxiously 
bent upon gaining merited applause. The one grasps at 
immediate power by any means within its reach ; the other 
if it does not square its actions by the rules of virtue, at 
least refers them to a standard which comes the nearest to 
it — the disinterested applause of our country, and the 
enlightened judgment of posterity. The love of fame is 
consistent with the steadiest attachment to principle, and 
indeed strengthens and supports it ; whereas the love of 
power, where this is the ruling passion, requires the 
sacrifice of principle, at every turn, and is inconsistent 
even with the shadow of it. I do not mean to say that 
Fox had no love of power, or Chatham no love of fame 
(this would be reversing all we know of human nature), 
but .that the one principle predominated in the one, and 
the other in the other. My reader will do me great 
injustice if he supposes that in attempting to describe 
the characters of different speakers by contrasting their 
general qualities, I mean anything beyond the more or 
less : but it is necessary to describe those qualities simply 
and in the abstract, in order to make the distinction 
intelligible Chatham resented any attack made upon the 
cause of liberty, of which he was the avowed champion, 
as an indignity offered to himself. Fox felt it as a stain 
upon the honour of his country, and as an injury to the 
rights of his fellow citizens. The one was swayed by his 
own passions and purposes, with very little regard to the 
consequences ; the sensibility of the other was roused, and 
his passions kindled into a generous flame, by a real 
interest in whatever related to the welfare of mankind 
and by an intense and earnest contemplation of the con- 
sequences of the measures he opposed. It was this union 
of the zeal of the patriot with the enlightened knowledge 



432 On the Character of Fox. 

of the statesman, that gave to the eloquence of Fox its 
more than mortal energy ; that warmed, expanded, pene- 
trated every bosom. He relied on the force of truth and 
nature alone ; the refinements of philosophy, the pomp and 
pageantry of the imagination were forgotten, or seemed 
light and frivolous ; the fate of nations, the welfare of 
millions, hung suspended as he spoke ; a torrent of manly 
eloquence poured from his heart, bore down everything in 
its course, and surprised into a momentary sense of human 
feeling the breathing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the 
stuffed figures, the flexible machinery, the " deaf and 
dumb things " of a court. 

I find (I do not know how the reader feels) that it is 
difficult to write a character of Fox without running into 
insipidity or extravagance. And the reason of this is, 
there are no splendid contrasts, no striking irregularities, 
no curious distinctions to work upon; no "jutting frieze, 
buttress, nor coigne of 'vantage," for the imagination to 
take hold of. It was a plain marble slab, inscribed in 
plain legible characters, without either hieroglyphics or 
carving. There was the same directness and manly sim- 
plicity in everything that he did. The whole of his charac- 
ter may indeed be summed up in two words — strength 
and simplicity. Fox was in the class of common men, but 
he was the first in that class. Though it is easy to describe 
the differences of things, nothing is more difficult than 
to describe their degrees or quantities. In what I am 
going to say, I hope I shall not be suspected of a design 
to under-rate his powers of mind, when in fact I am only 
trying to ascertain their nature and direction. The degree 
and extent to which he possessed them can only be known 
by reading, or indeed by having heard his speeches. 

His mind, as I have already said, was, I conceive, 
purely historical ; and having said this, I have I believe 
said all. But perhaps it will be necessary to explain a 
little farther what I mean. I mean, then, that his 



On the Character of Fox. 433 

memory was in an extraordinary degree tenacious of facts ; 
that they were crowded together in his mind without the 
least perplexity or confusion ; that there was no chain of 
consequences too vast for his powers of comprehension ; 
that the different parts and ramifications of his subject 
were never so involved and intricate but that they were 
easily disentangled in the clear prism of his understand- 
ing. The basis of his wisdom was experience : he not 
only knew what had happened, but by an exact knowledge 
of the real state of things, ho could always tell what in 
the common course of events would happen in future. 
The force of his mind was exerted on facts : as long as he 
could lean directly upon these, as long as he had the 
actual objects to refer to, to steady himself by, he could 
analyse, he could combine, he could compare and reason 
upon them, with the utmost exactness ; but he could not 
reason out of them. He was what is understood by a 
matter-of-fact reasoner. He was better acquainted with 
the concrete masses of things, their substantial forms and 
practical connections, than with their abstract nature or 
general definitions. He was a man of extensive informa- 
tion, of sound knowledge, and clear understanding, rather 
than the acute observer or profound thinker. He was the 
man of business, the accomplished statesman, rather than 
the philosopher. His reasonings were, generally speaking, 
calculations of certain positive results, which, the data 
being given, must follow as matters of course, rather than 
unexpected and remote truths drawn from a deep insight 
into human nature, and the subtle application of general 
principles to particular cases. They consisted chiefly 
in the detail and combination of a vast number of items 
in an account, worked by the known rules of political 
arithmetic ; not in the discovery of bold, comprehensive, 
and original theorems in the science. They were rather 
acts of memory, of continued attention, of a power of 
bringing all his ideas to bear at once upon a single point, 

2 F 



434 On the Character of Fox. 

than of reason or invention. He was the attentive ob- 
server who watches the various effects and successive 
movements of a machine already constructed, and can tell 
how to manage it while it goes on as it has always done ; 
but who knows little or nothing of the principles on which 
it is constructed, nor how to set it right, if it becomes 
disordered, except by the most common and obvious ex- 
pedients. Burke was to Fox what the geometrician is 
to the mechanic. Much has been said of the " prophetic 
mind " of Mr. Fox. The same epithet has been applied 
to Mr. Burke, till it has become proverbial. It has, I 
think, been applied without much reason to either. Fox 
wanted the scientific part. Burke wanted the practical. 
Fox had too little imagination, Burke had too much : that 
is, he was careless of facts, and was led away by his 
passions to look at one side of a question only. He had 
not that fine sensibility to outward impressions, that nice 
tact of circumstances, which is necessary to the consummate 
politician. Indeed, his wisdom was more that of the 
legislator than of the active statesman. They both tried 
their strength in the Ulysses' bow of politicians, the 
French Eevolution : and they were both foiled. Fox 
indeed foretold the success of the French in combating 
with foreign powers. But this was no more than what 
every friend of the liberty of France foresaw or fore- 
told as well as he. All those on the same side of the 
question were inspired with the same sagacity on the 
subject. Burke, on the other hand, seems to have been 
beforehand with the public in foreboding the internal 
disorders that would attend the Eevolution, and its 
ultimate failure ; but then it is at least a question 
whether he did not make good his own predictions : and 
certainly he saw into the causes and connection of events 
much more clearly after they had happened than before. 
He was however undoubtedly a profound commentator on 
that apocalyptical chapter in the history of human nature, 



On the Character of Fox. 435 

which I do not think Fox was. Whether led to it by the 
events or not, he saw thoroughly into the principles that 
operated to produce them ; and he pointed them out to 
others in a manner which could not be mistaken. I can 
conceive of Burke, as the genius of the storm, perched over 
Paris, the centre and focus of anarchy (so he would have 
us believe), hovering " with mighty wings outspread over 
the abyss, and rendering it pregnant," watching the 
passions of men gradually unfolding themselves in new 
situations, penetrating those hidden motives which hurried 
them from one extreme into another, arranging and ana- 
lysing the principles that alternately pervaded the vast 
chaotic mass, and extracting the elements of order and 
the cement of social life from the decomposition of all 
society ; while Charles Fox in the meantime dogged the 
heels of the allies (all the while calling out to them to 
stop) with his sutler's bag, his muster roll, and army 
estimates at his back. He said, You have only fifty 
thousand troops, the enemy have a hundred thousand : 
this place is dismantled, it can make no resistance : your 
troops were beaten last year, they must therefore be dis- 
heartened this. This is excellent sense and sound reason- 
ing, but I do not see what it has to do with philosophy. 
But why was it necessary that Fox should be a philoso- 
pher ? Why, in the first place, Burke was a philosopher, 
and Fox, to keep up with him, must be so too. In the 
second place, it was necessary in order that his indiscreet 
admirers, who have no idea of greatness but as it consists 
in certain names and pompous titles, might be able to talk 
big about their patron. It is a bad compliment we pay to 
our idol when we endeavour to make him out something 
different from himself; it shows that we are not satisfied 
with what he is. 1 have heard it said that he had as 
much imagination as Burke. To this extravagant asser- 
tion I shall make what I conceive to be a very cautious 
and moderate answer : that Burke was as superior to Fox 



436 On the Character of Fox, 

in this respect as Fox perhaps was to the first person you 
would meet in the street. There is, in fact, hardly an 
instance of imagination to be met with in any of his 
speeches ; what there is, is of the rhetorical kind. I may, 
however, be wrong. He might excel as much in profound 
thought, and richness of fancy, as he did in other things ; 
though I cannot perceive it. However, when any one 
publishes a book called The Beauties of Fox, containing 
the original reflections, brilliant passages, lofty metaphors, 
&c, to be found in his speeches, without the detail or con- 
nexion, I shall be very ready to give the point up. 

In logic Fox was inferior to Pitt — indeed, in all the 
formalities of eloquence, in which the latter excelled as 
much as he was deficient in the soul of substance. When 
I say that Pitt was superior to Fox in logic, I mean that 
he excelled him in the formal division of the subject, in 
always keeping it in view, as far as he chose ; in being 
able to detect any deviation from it in others ; in the 
management of his general topics ; in being aware of the 
mood and figure in which the argument must move, with 
all its nonessentials, dilemmas, and alternatives ; in never 
committing himself, nor ever suffering his antagonist to 
occupy an inch of the plainest ground, but under cover of 
a syllogism. He had more of " the dazzling fence of 
argument," as it has been called. He was, in short, better 
at his weapon. But then, unfortunately, it was only a 
dagger of lath that the wind could turn aside ; whereas Fox 
wore a good trusty blade, of solid metal, and real execution. 

I shall not trouble myself to inquire whether Fox was 
a man of strict virtue and principle ; or in other words, 
how far he was one of those who screw themselves up to 
a certain pitch of ideal perfection, who, as it were, set 
themselves in the stocks of morality, and make mouths at 
their own situation. He was not one of that tribe, and 
shall not be tried by their self-denying ordinances. But 
he was endowed with one of the most excellent natures 



On the Character of Fox. 437 

that ever fell to the lot of any of God's creatures. It has 
been said, that " an honest man's the noblest work of 
God." There is indeed a purity, a rectitude, an integrity 
of heart, a freedom from every selfish bias, and sinister 
motive, a manly simplicity and noble disinterestedness of 
feeling, which is in my opinion to be preferred before 
every other gift of nature or art. There is a greatness of 
soul that is superior to all the brilliancy of the under- 
standing. This strength of moral character, which is not 
only a more valuable but a rarer quality than strength of 
understanding (as we are oftener led astray by the 
narrowness of our feelings, than want of knowledge), Fox 
possessed in the highest degree. He was superior to 
every kind of jealousy, of suspicion, of malevolence ; to 
every narrow and sordid motive. He was perfectly above 
every species of duplicity, of low art and cunning. He 
judged of everything in the downright sincerity of his 
nature, without being able to impose upon himself by any 
hollow disguise, or to lend his support to anything unfair 
or dishonourable. He had an innate love of truth, of 
justice, of probity, of whatever was generous or liberal. 
Neither his education, nor his connections, nor his situa- 
tion in life, nor the low intrigues and virulence of party, 
could ever alter the simplicity of his taste, nor the candid 
openness of his nature. There was an elastic force about 
his heart, a freshness of social feeling, a warm glowing 
humanity, which remained unimpaired to the last. He 
was by nature a gentleman. By this I mean that he felt 
a certain deference and respect for the person of every 
man ; he had an unaffected frankness and benignity in his 
behaviour to others, the utmost liberality in judging of 
their conduct and motives. A refined humanity consti- 
tutes the character of a gentleman. He was the true 
friend of his country, as far as it is possible for a 
statesman to be so. But his love of his country did not 
consist in his hatred of the rest of mankind. I shall 



438 On the Character of Mr. Pitt. 

conclude this account by repeating what Burke said oi 
him at a time when his testimony was of the most value. 
" To his great and masterly understanding he joined the 
utmost possible degree of moderation : he was of the most 
artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition ; disin- 
terested in the extreme ; of a temper mild and placable, 
even to a fault ; and without one drop of gall in his con- 
stitution." 



ESSAY XIV. 

On the Character of Mr. Pitt} 

The character of Mr. Pitt was, perhaps, one of the most 
singular that ever existed. With few talents, and fewer 
virtues, he acquired and preserved in one of the most 
trying situations, and in spite of all opposition, the 
highest reputation for the possession of every moral 
excellence, and as having carried the attainments of 
eloquence and wisdom as far as human abilities could 
go. This he did (strange as it appears) by a negation 
(together with the common virtues) of the common vices 
of human nature, and by the complete negation of every 
other talent that might interfere with the only one which 
he possessed in a supreme degree, and which indeed may 
be made to include the appearance of all others — an artful 
use of words, and a certain dexterity of logical arrange- 
ment. In these alone his power consisted ; and the 
defect of all other qualities which usually constitute 
greatness, contributed to the more complete success of 
these. Having no strong feelings, no distinct perceptions, 
his mind having no link as it were, to connect it with 
the world of external nature, every subject presented 

1 Originally printed as part of a pamphlet entitled Free Thoughts 
on Public Affairs. 1806, and republished in the Eloquence of the 
British Senate, 1807, ii. 494, et seq. — Ed. 






On the Character of Mr. Pitt. 439 

to him nothing more than a tabula rasa, on which he was 
at liberty to lay whatever colouring of language he 
pleased ; having no general principles, no comprehensive 
views of things, no moral habits of thinking, no system of 
action, there was nothing to hinder him from pursuing 
any particular purpose, by any means that offered ; having 
never any plan, he could not be convicted of inconsistency, 
and his own pride and obstinacy were the only rules of 
his conduct. Having no insight into human nature, 
no sympathy with the passions of men, or apprehension 
of their real designs, he seemed perfectly insensible 
to the consequences of things, and would believe nothing 
till it actually happened. The fog and haze in which he 
saw everything communicated itself to others; and the 
total indistinctness and uncertainty of his own ideas 
tended to confound the perceptions of his hearers more 
effectually than the most ingenious misrepresentation 
could have done. Indeed, in defending his conduct 
he never seemed to consider himself as at all responsible 
for the success of his measures, or to suppose that future 
events were in our own power ; but that as the best-laid 
schemes might fail, and there was no providing against all 
possible contingencies, this was a sufficient excuse for our 
plunging at once into any dangerous or absurd enterprise, 
without the least regard to consequences. His reserved 
logic confined itself solely to the possible and the im- 
possible ; and he appeared to regard the probable and 
improbable, the only foundation of moral prudence or 
political wisdom, as beneath the notice of a profound 
statesman ; as if the pride of the human intellect were 
concerned in never entrusting itself with subjects, where 
it may be compelled to acknowledge its weakness. 1 From 

1 One instance may serve as an example for all the rest : — AVhen 
Mr. Fox last summer (1805) predicted the failure of the new con- 
federacy against France, from a consideration of the circumstances 
and relative situation of both parties, that is, from an exact know 



440 On the Character of Mr. Pitt. 

his manner of reasoning, lie seemed not to have believed 
that the truth of his statements depended on the reality of 
the facts, but that the things depended on the order in 
which he arranged them in words : you would not suppose 
him to be agitating a serious question which had real 
grounds to go upon, but to be declaiming upon an 
imaginary thesis, proposed as an exercise in the schools. 
He never set himself to examine the force of the objections 
that were brought against his measures, or attempted 
to establish these upon clear, solid grounds of his own ; 
but constantly contented himself with first gravely stating 
the logical form, or dilemma, to which the question reduced 
itself, and then, after having declared his opinion, pro- 
ceeded to amuse his hearers by a series of rhetorical 
commonplaces, connected together in grave, sonorous, and 
elaborately constructed periods, without ever showing 



ledge of the actual state of things, Mr. Pitt contented himself with 
answering — and, as in the blindness of his infatuation, he seemed 
to think quite satisfactorily — " That he could not assent to the 
honourable gentleman's reasoning, for that it went to this, that we 
were never to attempt to mend the situation of cur affairs, because 
in so doing we might possibly make them worse." No ; it was not 
on account of this abstract possibility in human affairs, or because 
we were not absolutely sure of succeeding (for that any child might 
know), but because it was in the highest degree probable, or 
morally certain, that the scheme would fail, and leave us in a worse 
situation than we were before, that Mr. Fox disapproved of the 
attempt. There is in this a degree of weakness and imbecility, a 
defect of understanding bordering on idiotism, a fundamental 
ignorance of the first principles of human reason and prudence, 
that in a great minister is utterly astonishing, and almost incredible. 
Nothing coujd ever drive him out of his dull forms, and naked 
generalities ; which, as they are susceptible neither of degree nor 
variation, are therefore equally applicable to every emergency that 
can happen: and in the most critical aspect of affairs, he saw 
nothing but the same flimsy web of remote possibilities and meta- 
physical uncertainty. In his mind the wholesome pulp < f practical 
wisdom and salutary advice was immediately converted into the dry 
chaff and husks of a miserable logic. 



On the Character of Mr. Pitt 441 

their real application to the subject in dispute. Thus, if 
any member of the Opposition disapproved of any measure, 
and enforced his objections by pointing out the many evils 
with which it was fraught, or the difficulties attending its 
execution, his only answer was, " That it was true there 
might be inconveniences attending the measure proposed, 
but we were to remember, that every expedient that could 
be devised might be said to be nothing more than a choice 
of difficulties, and that all that human prudence could do 
was to consider on which side the advantages lay ; that for 
his part, he conceived that the present measure was 
attended with more advantages and fewer disadvantages 
than any other that could be adopted ; that if we were 
diverted from our object by every appearance of difficulty, 
the wheels of goverment would be clogged by endless 
delays and imaginary grievances ; that most of the objec- 
tions made to the measure appeared to him to be trivial, 
others of them unfounded and improbable ; or that if a 
scheme free from all these objections could be proposed, it 
might after all prove inefficient ; while, in the meantime, 
a material object remained unprovided for, or the oppor- 
tunity of action was lost." This mode of reasoning is 
admirably described by Hobbes, in speaking of the writings 
of some of the Schoolmen, of whom he says, that " They 
had learned the trick of imposing what they list upon their 
readers, and declining the force of true reason by verbal 
forks : that is, distinctions which signify nothing/ but 
serve only to astonish the multitude of ignorant men." 
That what I have here stated comprehends the whole 
force of his mind, which consisted solely in this evasive 
dexterity and perplexing formality, assisted by a copious- 
ness of words and commonplace topics, will, I think, be 
evident in any one who carefully looks over his speeches, 
undazzled by the reputation or personal influence of the 
speaker. It will be in vain to look in them for any of 
the common proofs of human genius or wisdom. He has 



442 On the Character of Mr. Pitt. 

not left behind him a single memorable saying — not one 
profound maxim — one solid observation — one forcible 
description — one beautiful thought — one humorous picture 
— one affecting sentiment. 1 He has made no addition 
whatever to the stock of human knowledge. He did not 
possess any one of those faculties which contribute to the 
instruction and delight of mankind— depth of under- 
standing, imagination, sensibility, wit, vivacity, clear and 
solid judgment. But it may be asked, If these qualities 
are not to be found in him, where are we to look for them ? 
And I may be required to point out instances of them. 
I shall answer, then, that he had none of the profound 
legislative wisdom, piercing sagacity, or rich, impetuous, 
high-wrought imagination of Burke ; the manly eloquence, 
strong sense, exact knowledge, vehemence, and natural 
simplicity of Fox : the ease, brilliancy, and acuteness 
of Sheridan. It is not merely that he had not all these 
qualities in the degree that they were severally possessed 
by his rivals, but he had not any of them in any striking 
degree. His reasoning is a techinal arrangement of un- 
meaning commonplaces ; his eloquence merely rhetorical ; 
his style monotonous and artificial. If he could pretend to 
any one excellence in an eminent degree, it was to taste 
in composition. There is certainly nothing low, nothing 
puerile, nothing far-fetched or abrupt in his speeches ; 
there is a kind of faultless regularity pervading them 
throughout ; but in the confined, mechanical, passive mode 
of eloquence which he adopted, it seemed rather more 

1 I do remember one passage which has some meaning in it. At 
the time of the Kegency Bill, speaking of the proposal to take the 
King's servants from him, he says, " What must that great per- 
sonage feel when he waked from the trance of his faculties, and 
asked for his attendants, if he were told that his subjects had taken 
advantage of his momentary absence of mind, and stripped him of 
the symbols of his personal elevation." There is some grandeur in 
this. His admirers should have it inscribed in letters of gold ; for 
they will not find another instance of the same kind. 






On the Character of Mr. Pitt. 443 

difficult to commit errors than to avoid them. A man 
who is determined never to move out of the beaten road, 
cannot lose his way. However, habit, joined to the pecu- 
liar mechanical memory which he possessed, carried this 
correctness to a degree which, in an extemporaneous 
speaker, was almost miraculous ; he perhaps hardly ever 
uttered a sentence that was not perfectly regular and 
connected. In this respect he not only had the advantage 
over his own contemporaries, but perhaps no one that 
ever lived equalled him in this singular faculty. But for 
this, he would always have passed for a common man ; 
and to this the constant sameness, and, if I may so say, 
vulgarity of his ideas, must have contributed not a little, 
as there was nothing to distract his mind from this one 
object of his unintermitted attention ; and as even in his 
choice of words he never aimed at anything more than a 
certain general propriety, and stately uniformity of style. 
His talents were exactly fitted for the situation in which 
he was placed ; w T here it was his business, not to overcome 
others, but to avoid being overcome. He was able to 
baffle opposition, not from strength or firmness, but from 
the evasive ambiguity and impalpable nature of his resist- 
ance, which gave no hold to the rude grasp of his op- 
ponents : no force could bind the loose phantom, and his 
mind (though " not matchless, and his pride humbled by 
such rebuke"), soon rose from defeat unhurt, 

" And in its liquid texture mortal wound 
Eeceiv'd no more than can the fluid air." 1 



1 I will only add, that it is the property of true genius to force 
the admiration even of enemies. No one was ever hated or envied 
for his powers of mind, if others were convinced of their real ex- 
cellence. The jealousy and uneasiness produced in the mind by 
the display of superior talents almost always arises from a suspicion 
that there is some trick or deception in the case, and that we are 
imposed on by an appearance of what is not really there. True 
warmth and vigour communicate warmth and vigour; and we are 
no longer inclined to dispute the inspiration of the oracle, when we 



444 On the Character of Lord Chatham. 

ESSAY XV. 

On the Character of Lord Chatham. 1 

Lord Chatham's genius burnt brightest at the last. 
The spark of liberty, which had lain concealed and 
dormant, buried under the dirt and rubbish of state 
intrigue and vulgar faction, now met with congenial 
matter, and kindled up " a flame of sacred vehemence " 
in his breast. It burst forth with a fury and a splendour 
that might have awed the world, and made kings tremble. 
He spoke as a man should speak, because he felt as a man 
should feel, in such circumstances. He came forward as 
the advocate of liberty, as the defender of the rights of his 
fellow-citizens, as the enemy of tyranny, as the friend of 
his country, and of mankind. He did not stand up to 
make a vain display of his talents, but to discharge a 
duty, to maintain that cause which lay nearest to his 
heart, to preserve the ark of the British constitution from 
every sacrilegious touch, as the high-priest of his calling, 
with a pious zeal. The feelings and the rights of 
Englishmen were enshrined in his heart ; and with their 
united force braced every nerve, possessed every faculty, 
and communicated warmth and vital energy to every part 
of his being. The whole man moved under this impulse. 
He felt the cause of liberty as his own. He resented 
every injury done to her as an injury to himself, and 



feel the " presens Divus " in our own bosoms. But when, without 
gaining any new light or heat, we only find our ideas thrown into 
perplexity and confusion by an art that we cannot comprehend, this 
is a kind of superiority which must always be painful, and can 
never be cordially admitted. For this reason the extraordinary 
talents of Mr. Pitt were always viewed, except by those of his own 
party, with a sort of jealousy, and grudgingly acknowledged; while 
those of his rivals were admitted by all parties in the most unre- 
served manner, and carried by acclamation. 

1 The Eloquence of the British Senate, 1807, ii. 4-7.— Ed. 



On the Character of Lord Chatham. 445 

every attempt to defend it a,s an insult upon his under- 
standing. He did not stay to dispute about words, about 
nice distinctions, about trifling forms. He laughed at the 
little attempts of little retailers of logic to entangle him 
in senseless argument. He did not come there as to a 
debating club, or law court, to start questions and hunt 
them down ; to wind and unwind the web of sophistry ; to 
pick out the threads, and untie every knot with scrupulous 
exactness; to bandy logic with every pretender to a 
paradox ; to examine, to sift evidence ; to dissect a doubt 
and halve a scruple ; to weigh folly and knavery in scales 
together, and see on which side the balance prepon- 
derated ; to prove that liberty, truth, virtue, and justice 
were good things, or that slavery and corruption were bad 
things. He did not try to prove those truths which did 
not require any proof, but to make others feel them with 
the same force that he did ; and to tear off the flimsy 
disguises with which the sycophants of power attempted 
to cover them. The business of an orator is not to con- 
vince, but persuade ; not to inform, but to rouse the mind ; 
to build upon the habitual prejudices of mankind (for 
xeason of itself will do nothing), and to add feeling to pre- 
judice, and action to feeling. There is nothing new or 
curious or profound in Lord Chatham's speeches. All is 
obvious and common ; there is nothing but what we 
already knew, or might have found out for ourselves. 
We see nothing but the familiar everyday face of nature. 
We are always in broad daylight. But then there is the 
same difference between our own conceptions of things and 
his representation of them, as there is between the same 
objects seen on a dull cloudy day or in the blaze of 
sunshine. His common sense has the effect of inspiratioD. 
He electrifies his hearers, not by the novelty of his ideas, 
but by their force and intensity. He has the same ideas 
as other men, but he has them in a thousand times greater 
clearness and strength and vividness. Perhaps there if 



446 On the Character of Lord Chatham. 

no man so poorly furnished with thoughts and feelings 
but that if he could recollect all that he knew, and had 
all his ideas at perfect command, he would be able to 
confound the puny arts of the most dexterous sophist that 
pretended to make a dupe of his understanding. But in 
the mind of Chatham, the great substantial truths of 
common sense, the leading maxims of the Constitution, 
the real interests and general feelings of mankind were 
in a manner embodied. He comprehended the whole of 
his subject at a single glance — everything was firmly 
riveted to its place ; there was no feebleness, no forget- 
fulness, no pause, no distraction ; the ardour of his mind 
overcame every obstacle, and he crushed the objections of 
his adversaries as we crush an insect under our feet. His 
imagination was of the same character with his under- 
standing, and was under the same guidance. Whenever 
he gave way to it, it " flew an eagle flight, forth and right 
on ;" but it did not become enamoured of its own emotion, 
wantoning in giddy circles, or " sailing with supreme 
dominion through the azure deep of air." It never forgot 
its errand, but went straight forward, like an arrow to its 
mark, with an unerring aim. It was his servant, not his 
master. 

To be a great orator does not require the highest 
faculties of the human mind, but it requires the highest 
exertion of the common faculties of our nature. He has 
no occasion to dive into the depths of science, or to soar 
aloft on angels' wings. He keeps upon the surface, he 
stands firm upon the ground, but his form is majestic, and 
his eye sees far and near : he moves among his fellows, 
but he moves among them as a giant among common 
men. He has no need to read the heavens, to unfold the 
system of the universe, or create new worlds for the 
delighted fancy to dwell in ; it is enough that he see 
things as they are ; that he knows and feels and re- 
members the common circumstances and daily transactions 



On the Character of Lord Chatham. 447 

that are passing in the world around him. He is not raised 
above others by being superior to the common interests, 
prejudices, and passions of mankind, but by feeling them 
in a more intense degree than they do. Force, then, 
is the sole characteristic excellence of an orator; it is 
almost the only one that can be of any service to him. 
Kefinement, depth, elevation, delicacy, originality, inge- 
nuity, invention, are not wanted; he must appeal to the 
sympathies of human nature, and whatever is not founded 
in these, is foreign to his purpose. He does not create, he 
can only imitate or echo back the public sentiment. His 
object is to call up the feelings of the human breast ; but 
he cannot call up what is not already there. The first 
duty of an orator is to be understood by every one ; but 
it is evident that what all can understand, is not in itself 
difficult of comprehension. He cannot add anything to 
the materials afforded him by the knowledge and expe- 
rience of others. 

Lord Chatham, in his speeches, was neither philosopher 
nor poet. As to the latter, the difference between poetry 
and eloquence I take to be this : that the object of the 
one is to delight the imagination, that of the other to 
impel the will. The one ought to enrich and feed the 
mind itself with tenderness and beauty, the other fur- 
nishes it with motives of action. The one seeks to give 
immediate pleasure, to make the mind dwell with rapture 
on its own workings — it is to itself " both end and use :" 
the other endeavours to call up such images as will 
produce the strongest effect upon the mind, and makes use 
of the passions only as instruments to attain a particular 
purpose. The poet lulls and soothes the mind into a 
forgetfulness of itself, and " laps it in Elysium : " the 
orator strives to awaken it to a sense of its real interests, 
and to make it feel the necessity of taking the most effec- 
tual means for securing them. The one dwells in an 
ideal world; the other is only conversant with realities. 



448 On the Character of Lord Chatham. 

Hence poetry must be more ornamented, must be richer 
and fuller and more delicate, because it is at liberty to 
select whatever images are naturally most beautiful, and 
likely to give most pleasure ; whereas the orator is 
confined to particular facts, which he may adorn as well 
as he can, and make the most of, but which he cannot 
strain beyond a certain point without running into 
extravagance and affectation, and losing his end. How- 
ever, from the very nature of the case, the orator is 
allowed a greater latitude, and is compelled to make use 
of harsher and more abrupt combinations in the decora- 
tion of his subject ; for his art is an attempt to reconcile 
beauty and deformity together : on the contrary, the 
materials of poetry, which are chosen at pleasure, are in 
themselves beautiful, and naturally combine with whatever 
else is beautiful. Grace and harmony are therefore 
essential to poetry, because they naturally arise out of the 
subject ; but whatever adds to the effect, whatever tends 
to strengthen the idea or give energy to the mind, is of the 
nature of eloquence. The orator is only concerned to 
give a tone of masculine firmness to the will, to brace the 
sinews and muscles of the mind ; not to delight our 
nervous sensibilities, or soften the mind into voluptuous 
indolence. The flowery and sentimental style is of all 
others the most intolerable in a speaker. — I shall only add 
on this subject, that modesty, impartiality, and candour, 
are not the virtues of a public speaker. He must be 
confident, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcoming all oppo- 
sition by his ardour and impetuosity. We do not command 
others by sympathy with them, but by power, by passion, 
by will. Calm inquiry, sober truth, and speculative 
indifference will never carry any point. The passions 
are contagious ; and we cannot contend against opposite 
passions with nothing but naked reason. Concessions to 
an enemy are clear loss ; he will take advantage of them, 
but make us none in return. He will magnify the weak 



Belief, whether Voluntary ? 449 

sides of our argument, but will be blind to whatever 
makes against himself. The multitude will always be 
inclined to side with that party whose passions are the 
most inflamed, and whose prejudices are the most in- 
veterate. Passion should therefore never be sacrificed 
to punctilio. It should indeed be governed by pru- 
dence, but it shou]d itself govern and lend its impulse 
and direction to abstract reason. Fox was a reasoner 
Lord Chatham was an orator. Burke was both a reasoner 
and a poet ; and was therefore still farther removed from 
that conformity with the vulgar notions and mechanical 
feelings of mankind, which will always be necessary to 
give a man the chief sway in a popular assembly. 



ESSAY XYI. 

Belief whether Voluntary? 1 

u Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought." 

It is an axiom in modern philosophy (among many other 
false ones) that belief is absolutely involuntary, since we 
draw our inferences from the premises laid before us, and 
cannot possibly receive any other impression of things 
than that which they naturally make upon us. This 
theory, that the understanding is purely passive in the 
reception of truth, and that our convictions are not in the 
power of our will, was probably first invented or insisted 
upon as a screen against religious persecution, and as an 
answer to those who imputed bad motives to all who 
differed from the established faith, and thought they 
could reform heresy and impiety by the application of fire 
and the sword. No doubt, that is not the way: for the 
will in that case irritates itself and grows refractory 
against the doctrines thus absurdly forced upon it ; and as 
it has been said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed 
1 First printed in the Literary Remains, 1836. — Ed. 

2 G 



450 Belief, whether Voluntary? 

of the Church. But though force and terror may not be 
always the surest way to make converts, it does not follow 
that there may not be other means of influencing our 
opinions, besides the naked and abstract evidence for 
any proposition : the sun melts the resolution which the 
storm could not shake. In such points as, whether an 
object is black or white or whether two and two make 
four, 1 we may not be able to believe as we please or to 
deny the evidence of our reason and senses : but in those 
points on which mankind differ, or where we can be at all 
in suspense as to which side we shall take, the truth is not 
quite so plain or palpable ; it admits of a variety of views 
and shades of colouring, and it should appear that we can 
dwell upon whichever of these we choose, and heighten or 
soften the circumstances adduced in proof, according as 
passion and inclination throw their casting- weight into the 
scale. Let any one, for instance, have been brought up in 
an opinion, let him have remained in it all his life, let him 
have attached all his notions of respectability, of the 
approbation of his fellow-citizens or his own self-esteem 
to it, let him then first hear it called in question, and 
a strong and unforeseen objection stated to it, will not 
this startle and shock him as if he had seen a spectre, 
and will he not struggle to resist the arguments that 
would unsettle his habitual convictions, as he would resit 
the divorcing of soul and body ? Will he come to the con- 
sideration of the question impartially, indifferently, and 
without any wrong bias, or give the painful and revolting 
truth the same cordial welcome as the long-cherished and 
favourite prejudice ? To say that the truth or falsehood of 
a proposition is the only circumstance that gains it admit- 
tance into the mind, independently of the pleasure or pain 
it affords us, is itself an assertion made in pure caprice or 
desperation. A person may have a profession or employ- 

1 Hobbes is of opinion that men would deny this, if they had any 
interest in doing so. 



Belief, whether Voluntary ? • 451 

merit connected with a certain belief, it may be the means 
of livelihood to him, and the changing it may require 
considerable sacrifices, or may leave him almost without 
resource (to say nothing of mortified pride) — this will 
not mend the matter. The evidence against his former 
opinion may be so strong (or may appear so to him) that 
he may be obliged to give it up. but not without a pang 
and after having tried every artifice and strained every 
nerve to give the utmost weight to the arguments favouring 
his own side, and to make light of and throw those against 
him into the background. And nine times in ten this 
bias of the will and tampering with the proofs will prevail. 
It is only with very vigorous or very candid minds that 
the understanding exercises its just and boasted pre- 
rogative, and induces its votaries to relinquish a profitable 
delusion and embrace the dowerless truth. Even then 
they have the sober and discreet part of the world, all 
the bons peres de famille, who look principally to the main 
chance, against them, and they are regarded as little better 
than lunatics or profligates to fling up a good salary and a 
provision for themselves and families for the sake of that 
foolish thing, a Conscience ! With the herd, belief on 
all abstract and disputed topics is voluntary, that is, 
is determined by considerations of personal ease and 
convenience, in the teeth of logical analysis and demon- 
stration, which are set aside as mere waste of words. 
In short, generally speaking, people stick to an opinion 
that they have long supported and that supports them. 
How else shall we account for the regular order and 
progression of society : for the maintenance of certain 
opinions in particular professions and classes of men, 
as we keep water in cisterns, till in fact they stagnate and 
corrupt : and that the world and every individual in it is 
not " blown about with every wind of doctrine " and whis- 
per of uncertainty ? There is some more solid ballast 
required to keep things in their established order than the 



452 Belief, whether Voluntary ? 

restless fluctuation of opinion and " infinite agitation 
of wit." We find that people in Protestant countries 
continue Protestants, and in Catholic countries Papists. 
This, it may be answered, is owing to the ignorance of the 
great mass of them ; but in their faith less bigoted, because 
it is not founded on a regular investigation of the proofs, 
and is merely an obstinate determination to believe what 
they have been told and accustomed to believe ? Or is it 
not the same with the doctors of the church and its most 
learned champions, who read the same texts, turn over the 
same authorities, and discuss the same knotty points 
through their whole lives, only to~ arrive at opposite 
conclusions ? How few are shaken in their opinions, 
or have the grace to confess it ? Shall we then suppose 
them all impostors, and that they keep up the farce of a 
system, of which they do not believe a syllable ? Far 
from it : there may be individual instances, but the 
generality are not only sincere but bigots. Those who 
are unbelievers and hypocrites scarcely know it them- 
selves, or if a man is not quite a knave, what pains will he 
not take to make a fool of his reason, that his opinions 
may tally with his professions ? Is there then a Papist and 
a Protestant understanding — one prepared to receive the 
doctrine of transubstantiation and the other to reject it ? 
No such thing : but in either case the ground of reason is 
pre-occupied by passion, habit, example — the scales are 
falsified. Nothing can therefore be more inconsequential 
than to bring the authority of great names in favour 
of opinions long established and universally received. 
Cicero's being a Pagan was no proof in support of the 
Heathen mythology, but simply of his being born at Eome 
before the Christian era ; though his lurking scepticism 
on the subject ahd sneers at the augurs told against it, 
for this was an acknowledgment drawn from him in 
spite of a prevailing prejudice. Sir Isaac Newton and 
Napier of Murchiston both wrote on the Apocalypse ; but 



Belief, whether Voluntary? 453 

this is neither a ground for a speedy anticipation of the 
Millennium, nor does it invalidate the doctrine of the 
gravitation of the planets or the theory of logarithms. 
One party would borrow the sanction of these great names 
in support of their wildest and most mystical opinions ; 
others would arraign them of folly and weakness for 
having attended to such subjects at all. Neither inference 
is just. It is a simple question of chronology, or of the 
time when these celebrated mathematicians lived, and 
of the studies and pursuits which were then chiefly in 
vogue. The wisest man is the slave of opinion, except on 
one or two points on which he strikes out a light for 
himself and holds a torch to the rest of the world. But we 
are disposed to make it out that all opinions are the result 
of reason, because they profess to be so ; and when they 
are tight, that is, when they agree with ours, that there 
can be . no alloy of human frailty or perversity in them ; 
the very strength of our prejudice making it pass for pure 
reason, and leading us to attribute any deviation from it 
to bad faith or some unaccountable singularity or infatua- 
tion. Alas, poor human nature / Opinion is for the most. 
part only a battle, in which we take part and defend che 
side we have adopted, in the one case or the other, with a 
view to share the honour of the spoil. Few will stand up 
for a losing cause, or have the fortitude to adhere to 
a proscribed opinion ; and when they do, it is not always 
from superior strength of understanding or a disinterested 
love of truth, but from obstinacy and sullenness of temper. 
To affirm that we do not cultivate an acquaintance with 
truth as she presents herself to us in a more or less pleasing 
shape, or is shabbily attired or well-dressed, is as much as 
to say that we do not shut our eyes to the light when it 
dazzles us, or withdraw our hands from the fire when 
it scorches us. 

" Masterless passion sways us to the mood 
Of what it likes or loathes." 



454 Belief, whether Voluntary ? 

Are we not averse to believe bad news relating to ourselves 
— forward enough if it relates to others ? If something is 
said reflecting on the character of an intimate friend or 
near relative, how unwilling we are to lend an ear to it, 
how we catch at every excuse or palliating circumstance, 
and hold out against the clearest proof, while we instantly 
believe any idle report against an enemy, magnify the 
commonest trifles into crimes, and torture the evidence 
against him to our heart's content ! Do not we change 
our opinion of the same person, and make him out to be 
hlack or white according to the terms we happen to be on ? 
If we have a favourite author, do we not exaggerate his 
beauties and pass over his defects, and vice versa f The 
human mind plays the interested advocate much oftener 
than the upright and inflexible judge, in the colouring and 
relief it gives to the facts brought before it. We believe 
things not more because they are true or probable, than 
because we desire, or (if the imagination once takes that 
turn) because we dread them. u Fear has more devils 
than vast hell can hold/ 5 The sanguine always hope, the 
gloomy always despond, from temperament and not from 
forethought. Do we not disguise the plainest facts from 
ourselves if they are disagreeable ? Do we not flatter 
ourselves with impossibilities ? What girl does not look 
in the glass to persuade herself she is handsome ? What 
woman ever believes herself old, or does not hate to be 
called so : though she knows the exact year and day of her 
age, the more she tries to keep up the appearance of youth 
to herself and others ? What lover would ever acknow- 
ledge a flaw in the character of his mistress, or would not 
construe her turning her back on him into a proof of 
attachment ? The story of January and May is pat to our 
purpose ; for the credulity of mankind as to what touches 
our inclinations has been proverbial in all ages : yet we 
are told that the mind is passive in making up these wilful 
accounts and is guided by nothing but the pros and cons of 



Belief, whether Voluntary f 455 

evidence. Even in action and where we may determine by 
proper precaution the event of things, instead of being 
compelled to shut our eyes to what we cannot help, we 
still are the dupes of the feeling of the moment, and prefer 
amusing ourselves with fair appearances to securing more 
solid benefits by a sacrifice of Imagination and stubborn 
Will to Truth. The blindness of passion to the most 
obvious and well-known consequences is deplorable. 
There seems to be a particular fatality in this respect. 
Because a thing is in our power till we have committed 
ourselves, we appear to dally, to trifle with, to make light 
of it, and to think it will still be in our power after we 
have committed ourselves. Strange perversion of the 
reasoning faculties, which is little short of madness, and 
which yet is one of the constant and practical sophisms of 
human life ! It is ' as if one should say — I am in no 
danger from a tremendous machine unless I touch such a 
spring and therefore I will approach it, I will play with 
the danger, I will laugh at it, and at last in pure sport 
and wantonness of heart, from my sense of previous 
security, I will touch it — and there's an end. While the 
thing remains in contemplation, we may be said to stand 
safe and smiling on the brink : as soon as we proceed to 
action we are drawn into the vortex of passion and hurried 
to our destruction. A person taken up with some one 
purpose or passion is intent only upon that : he drives 
out the thought of everything but its gratification : in the 
pursuit of that he is blind to consequences : his first 
object being attained, they all at once, and as if by magic, 
rush upon his mind. The engine recoils, he is caught in 
his own snare. A servant girl, for some pique, or for 
an angry word, determines to poison her mistress. She 
knows beforehand (just as well as she does afterwards) 
that it is at least a hundred chances to one she will be 
hanged if she succeeds, yet this has no more effect upon 
her than if she had never heard of any such matter. The 



456 Belief, whether Voluntary ? 

only idea that occupies her mind and hardens it against 
every other, is that of the affront she has received, and the 
desire of revenge : she broods over it ; she meditates the 
mode, she is haunted with her scheme night and day : it 
works like poison ; it grows into a madness, and she can 
have no peace till it is accomplished and off Iter mind ; but 
the moment this is the case, and her passion is assuaged, 
fear takes place of hatred, the slightest suspicion alarms 
her with the certainty of her fate, from which she before 
wilfully averted her thoughts ; she runs wildly from the 
officers before they know anything of the matter ; the 
gallows stares her in the face, and if none else accuses her, 
so full is she of her danger and her guilt, that she probably 
betrays herself. She at first would see no consequences 
to result from her crime but the getting rid of a present 
uneasiness ; she now sees the very worst The whole 
seems to depend on the turn given to the imagination, on 
our immediate disposition to attend to this or that view of 
the subject, the evil or the good As long as our in- 
tention is unknown to the world, before it breaks out into 
action, it seems to be deposited in our own bosoms, to be a 
mere feverish dream, and to be left with all its conse- 
quences under our imaginary control : but no sooner is it 
realised and known to others, than it appears to have 
escaped from our reach, we fancy the whole world are up 
in arms against us, and vengeance is ready to pursue and 
overtake us. So in the pursuit of pleasure, we see only 
that side of the question which we approve; the dis- 
agreeable consequences (which may take place) make no 
part of our intention or concern, or of the wayward exer- 
cise of our will : if they should happen we cannot help it ; 
they form an ugly and unwished-for contrast to our 
favourite speculation : we turn our thoughts another way, 
repeating the adage Quod sic mihi ostendis incredtdus odi. 
It is a good remark in Vivian Grey that a bankrupt walks 
the streets the day before his name is in the Gazette 



Belief whether Voluntary f 457 

with the same erect and confident brow as ever, and only 
feels the mortification of his situation after it becomes 
known to others. Such is the force of sympathy, and its 
power to take off the edge of internal conviction! As 
long as we can impose upon the world, we can impose 
upon ourselves, and trust to the flattering appearances, 
though we know them to be false. We put off the evil 
day as long as we can, make a jest of it as the certainty 
becomes more painful, and refuse to acknowledge the 
secret to ourselves till it can no longer be kept from all 
the world. In short, we believe just as little or as much 
as we please of those things in which our will can be sup- 
posed to interfere ; and it is only by setting aside our own 
interests and inclinations on more general questions that 
we stand any chance of arriving at a fair and rational 
judgment. Those who have the largest hearts have the 
soundest understandings ; and he is the truest philosopher 
who can forget himself. This is the reason why philo- 
sophers are often said to be mad, for thinking only of the 
abstract truth and of none of its worldly adjuncts — it 
seems like an absence of mind, or as if the devil had got 
into them ! If belief were not in some degree voluntary, 
or were grounded entirely on strict evidence and absolute 
proof, every one would be a martyr to his opinions, and we 
should have no power of evading or glossing over those 
matter-of-fact conclusions for which positive vouchers 
could be produced, however painful these conclusions 
might be to our own feelings, or offensive to the prejudices 
of others. 



458 A Farewell to Essay~ivriting. 

ESSAY XVII. 

A Farewell to Essay-writing. 1 

" This life is best, if quiet life is best.'' 

Food, warmth, sleep, and a book ; these are all I at present 
ask — the ultima TJiule of my wandering desires. Do you 
not then wish for 

" A friend in your retreat, 
Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet T* 

Expected, well enough : — gone, still better. Such attrac- 
tions are strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress ? 
" Beautiful mask ! I know thee ! " When I can judge 
of the heart from the face, of the thoughts from the lips, 
I may again trust myself. Instead of these give me the 
robin red-breast, pecking the crumbs at the door, or 
warbling on the leafless spray, the same glancing form 
that has followed me wherever I have been, and " done 
its spiriting gently ;" or the rich notes of the thrush that 
startle the ear of winter, and seem to have drunk up the 
full draught of joy from the very sense of contrast. To 
these I adhere, and am faithful, for they are true to me ; 
and, dear in themselves, are dearer for the sake of what is 
departed, leading me back (by the hand) to that dreaming 
world, in the innocence of which they sat and made sweet 
music, waking the promise of future years, and answered 
by the eager throbbings of my own breast. But now 
li the credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er," and I turn 
back from the world that has deceived me, to nature that 
lent it a false beauty, and that keeps up the illusion of 
the past. As I quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I 
love to watch the clouds sailing from the west, and fancy 
that " the spring comes slowly up this way." In this 

1 Written at Winterslow, Feb. 20, 1828. See Memoirs, ii. 220, 
et seq. — Ed. 






A Farewell to Essay writing. 459 

hope, while im fields are dank and ways are mire," I follow 
the same direction to a neighbouring wood, where, having 
gained the dry, level greensward, I can see . my way for a 
mile before me, closed in on each side by copse-wood, and 
ending in a point of light more or less brilliant, as the 
day is bright or cloudy. What a walk is this to me ! 
I have no need of book or companion — the days, the hours, 
the thoughts of my youth are at my side, and blend with 
the air that fans my cheek. Here I can saunter for hours, 
bending my eye forward, stopping and turning to look 
back, thinking to strike off into some less trodden path, 
yet hesitating to quit the one I am in, afraid to snap the 
brittle threads of memory. I remark the shining trunks 
and slender branches of the birch trees, waving in the 
idle breeze ; or a pheasant springs up on whirring wing ; 
or I recall the spot where I once found a wood-pigeon at 
the foot of a tree, weltering in its gore, and think how 
many seasons have flown since "it left its little life in 
air." Dates, names, faces come back — to what purpose ? 
Or why think of them now ? Or rather why not think of 
them oftener? We walk through life, as through a 
narrow path, with a thin curtain drawn around it ; behind 
are ranged rich portraits, airy harps are strung — yet we 
will not stretch forth our hands and lift aside the veil, 
to catch glimpses of the one, or sweep the chords of the 
other. As in a theatre, when the old-fashioned green 
curtain drew up, groups of figures, fantastic dresses, 
laughing faces, rich banquets, stately columns, gleaming 
vistas appeared beyond ; so we have only at any time to 
" peep through the blanket of the past," to possess our- 
selves at once of all that has regaled our senses, that is 
stored up in our memory, that has struck our fancy, that 
has pierced our hearts : — yet to all this we are indifferent, 
insensible, and seem intent only on the present vexation, 
the future disappointment. If there is a Titian hanging 
up in the room with me, I scarcely regard it : how then 



460 A Fareivell to Essay-writing. 

should I be expected to strain the mental eye so far, or to 
throw down, by the magic spells of the will, the stone- 
walls that enclose it in the Louvre? There is one head 
; there of which I have often thought, when looking at it, 
•that nothing should ever disturb me again, and I would 
become the character it represents — such perfect calmness 
and self-possession reigns in it ! Why do I not hang an 
image of this in some dusky corner of my brain, and turn 
an eye upon it ever and anon, as I have need of some 
such talisman to calm my troubled thoughts? The 
attempt is fruitless, if not natural; or, like that of the 
French, to hang garlands on the grave, and to conjure 
back the dead by miniature pictures of them while living ! 
It is only some actual coincidence or local association that 
tends, without violence, to " open all the cells where 
memory slept." I can easily, by stooping over the long- 
sprent grass and clay cold clod, recall the tufts of 'prim- 
roses, or purple hyacinths, that formerly grew on the 
same spot, and cover the bushes with leaves and singing- 
birds, as they were eighteen summers ago ; or prolonging 
my walk and hearing the sighing gale rustle through a 
tall, straight wood at the end of it, can fancy that I dis- 
tinguish the cry of hounds, and the fatal group issuing 
from it, as in the tale of Theodore and Honoria. A 
moaning gust of wind aids the belief ; I look once more to 
see whether the trees before me answer to the idea of the 
horror-stricken grove, and an air-built city towers over 
their grey tops. 

" Of all the cities in Eomanian lands, 
The chief and most renown'd .Ravenna stand;?.*' 1 

I return home resolved to read the entire poem through, 
and, after dinner, drawing my chair to the fire, and 
holding a small print close to my eyes, launch into the 
full tide of Dryden's couplets (a stream of sound), com- 
paring his didactic and descriptive pomp with the simple 
1 Dryden's Theodore and Honoria, princip. 



A Farewell to Essay-Vjriting. 461 

pathos and picturesque truth of Boccacio's story, and 
tasting with a pleasure, which none but an habitual reader 
can feel, some quaint examples of pronunciation in this 
accomplished versifier. 

" "Which when Honoria view'd, 
The fresh impulse her former fright renew'd." l 
" And made th' insult, which in his grief appears, 
The means to mourn thee with my pious tears." 2 

These trifling instances of the wavering and unsettled 
state of the language give double effect to the firm and 
stately march of the verse, and make me dwell with a sort 
of tender interest on the difficulties and doubts of an 
earlier period of literature. They pronounced words then 
in a manner which we should laugh at now; and they 
wrote verse in a manner which we can do anything but 
laugh at. The pride of a new acquisition seems to give 
fresh confidence to it; to impel the rolling syllables 
through the moulds provided for them, and to overflow 
the envious bounds of rhyme into time-honoured triplets. 

What sometimes surprises me in looking back to the 
past, is, with the exception already stated, to find myself 
so little changed in the time. The same images and 
trains of thought stick by me : I have the same tastes, 
likings, sentiments, and wishes that I had then. One 
great ground of confidence and support has, indeed, been 
struck from under my feet; but I have made it up to 
myself by proportionable pertinacity of opinion. The 
success of the great cause, to which I had vowed myself, 
was to me more than all the world : I had a strength in 
its strength, a resource which I knew not of, till it failed 
me for the second time. 

" Fall'n was Glenartny's stately tree ! 
Oh ! ne'er to see Lord Konald more !" 



1 Dryden's Theodore and Honoria, princip. 
2 Dryden's Sigismonda and Guiscardo. 



462 A Farewell to Essay-ivriting. 

It was not till I saw the axe laid to the root, that I 
found the full extent of what I had to lose and suffer. 
But my conviction of the right was only established by 
the triumph of the wrong ; and my earliest hopes will be 
my last regrets. One source of this unbendingness (which 
some may call obstinacy), is that, though living much 
alone, I have never worshipped the Echo. I see plainly 
enough that black is not white, that the grass is green, 
that kings are not their subjects ; and, in such self-evident 
cases, do not think it necessary to collate my opinions 
with the received prejudices. In subtler questions, and 
matters that admit of doubt, as I do not impose my opinion 
on others without a reason, so I will not give up mine to 
them without a better reason ; and a person calling me 
names, or giving himself airs of authority, does not con- 
vince me of his having taken more pains to find out the 
truth than I have, but the contrary. Mr. Gifford once 
said, that " while I was sitting over my gin and tobacco- 
pipes, I fancied myself a Leibnitz." He did not so much 
as know that I had ever read a metaphysical book: — was I 
therefore, out of complaisance or deference to him, to 
forget whether I had or not ? Leigh Hunt is puzzled to 
reconcile the shyness of my pretensions with the invete- 
racy and sturdiness of my principles. I should have 
thought they were nearly the same thing. Both from 
disposition and habit, I can assume nothing in word, look, 
or manner. I cannot steal a march upon public opinion 
in any way. My standing upright, speaking loud, entering 
a room gracefully, proves nothing; therefore I neglect 
these ordinary means of recommending myself to the good 
graces and admiration of strangers (and, as it appears, 
even of philosophers and friends). Why? Because I 
have other resources, or, at least, am absorbed in other 
studies and pursuits. Suppose this absorption to be 
extreme, and even morbid— that I have brooded over an 
idea till it has become a kind of substance in my brain, 



A Farewell to Essay-writing. 463 

that I have reasons for a thing which I have found out 
with much labour and pains, and to which I can scarcely 
do justice without the utmost violence of exertion (and 
that only to a few persons) — is this a reason for my 
playing off my out-of-the-way notions in all companies, 
wearing a prim and self-complacent air, as if I were " the 
admired of all observers?" or is it not rather an argument, 
(together with a want of animal spirits,) why I should 
retire into myself, and perhaps acquire a nervous and 
uneasy look, from a consciousness of the disproportion 
between the interest and conviction I feel on certain 
subjects, and my ability to communicate what weighs upon 
my own mind to others ? If my ideas, which I do not 
avouch, but suppose, lie below the surface, why am I to 
be always attempting to dazzle superficial people with 
them, or smiling, djlighted, at my own want of success? 

In matters of taste and feeling, one proof that my 
conclusions have not been quite shallow or hasty, is the 
circumstance of their having been lasting. I have the 
same favourite books, pictures, passages that I ever had : 
I may therefore presume that they will last me my life — 
nay, I may indulge a hope that my thoughts will survive 
me. This continuity of impression is the only thing on 
which I pride myself. Even Lamb, whose relish of 
certain things is as keen and earnest as possible, takes a 
surfeit of admiration, and I should be afraid to ask about 
his select authors or particular friends, after a lapse of ten 
years. As to myself, any one knows w T here to have me. 
What I have once made up my mind to, I abide by to the 
end of the chapter. One cause of my independence of 
opinion is, I believe, the liberty I give to others, or the 
very diffidence and distrust of making converts. I should 
be an excellent man on a jury. I might say little, but 
should starve "the other eleven obstinate fellows" out. 
1 remember Mr. Godwin writing to Mr. Wordsworth, that 
"his tragedy of Antonio could net fail of success/' It 



464 A Farewell to Essay-writing. 



was damned past all redemption. I said to Mr. Words- 
worth that I thought this a natural consequence; for how 
could any one have a dramatic turn of mind who judged 
entirely of others from himself? Mr. Godwin might be 
convinced of the excellence of his work ; but how could he 
know that others would be convinced of it, unless by 
supposing that they were as wise as himself, and as 
infallible critics of dramatic poetry — so many Aristotles 
sitting in judgment on Euripides ! This shows why pride 
is connected witn shyness and reserve ; for the really 
proud have not so high an opinion of the generality as to 
suppose that they can understand them, or that there is 
any common measure between them. So Dryden exclaims 
of his opponents with bitter disdain — 

" Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive." 

I have not sought to make partisans, still less did I dream 
of making enemies ; and have therefore kept my opinions 
myself, whether they were currently adopted or not. To 
get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go 
over to theirs ; and it is necessary to follow, in order to 
lead. At the time I lived here formerly, I had no sus- 
picion that I should ever become a voluminous writer, 
yet I had just the same confidence in my feelings before 
I had ventured to air them in public as I have now. 
Neither the outcry for or against moves me a jot : I 
do not say that the one is not more agreeable than the 
other. 

Not far from the spot where I write, I first read 
Chaucer's Flower and Leaf and was charmed with that 
young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and listening with 
ever-fresh delight to the repeated song of the nightingale 
close by her — the impression of the scene, the vernal 
landscape, the cool of the morning, the gushing notes of 
the songstress, 

"And ayen mtthought she sung close bv mine ear " 



. 



A Farewell to Essay-writing. 465 

is as vivid as if it had been of yesterday ; and nothing can 
persuade me that that is not a fine poem. I do not find 
this impression conveyed in Dryden's version, and there- 
fore nothing can persuade me that that is as fine. I used 
to walk out at this time with Mr. and Miss Lamb 1 of an 
evening, to look at the Claude Lorraine skies over our 
heads melting from azure into purple and gold, and to 
gather mushrooms, that sprung up at our feet, to throw 
into our hashed mutton at supper. I was at that time an 
enthusiastic admirer of Claude, and could dwell for ever 
on one or two of the finest prints from him hung round 
my little room ; the fleecy flocks, the bending trees, the 
winding streams, the groves, the nodding temples, the air- 
wove hills, and distant sunny vales ; and tried to translate 
them into their lovely living hues. People then told 
me that Wilson was much superior to Claude: I did 
not believe them. Their pictures have since been seen 
together at the British Institution, and all the world have 
come into my opinion. I have not, on that account, given 
it up. I will not compare our hashed mutton with 
Amelia's ; but it put us in mind of it, and led to a 
discussion, sharply seasoned and well sustained, till mid- 
night, the result of which appeared some years after in the 
Edinburgh Review. Have I a better opinion of those 
criticisms on that account, or should I therefore maintain 
them with greater vehemence and tenaciousness ? Oh no : 
Both rather with less, now that they are before the public, 
and it is for them to make their election. 

It is in looking back to such scenes that I draw my best 
consolation for the future. Later impressions come and 
go, and serve to fill up the intervals ; but these are my 
standing resource, my true classics. If I have had few 
real pleasures or advantages, my ideas, from their sinewy 
texture, have bt^.n to me in the nature of realities ; and if 
I should not be able to add to the stock, I can live by 

1 Eeferring to the yea/1809. See Memoirs, i. 172-4. — Ed. 

2 H 



466 A Farewell to Essay-writing. 

husbanding the interest. As to my speculations, there is 
little to admire in them but my admiration of others ; and 
whether they have an echo in time to come or not, I have 
learned to set a grateful value on the past, and am content 
to wind up the account of what is personal only to myself 
and the immediate circle of objects in which I have 
moved, with an act of easy oblivion, 

" And curtain-close such scene from every future view." 



THE END. 



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